> Virtual Mischief, Augmented Darkness
>  by chaoticevl
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Package Arrives
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sighing with relief, Thomas sits down at his computer after finally finishing the setup for his entertainment room. He’d managed to clear out the second bedroom after his roommate took off to join a crew of asteroid miners. He now had an entire room to use for his new Virtual/Augmented reality glasses he picked up a couple months ago. While Thomas wasn’t exactly a shut in, he really didn’t get out much as he worked temp contract programming jobs straight from home. His apartment wasn’t large by any means but it was comfortable and thankfully vermin free albeit looked like it belonged in a 20th century thug drama, meaning 10 story brick and mortar instead of the nice 50+ story plasteel structures surrounding it. This fact plus it being cheaper to live here gave Thomas the feeling of being close to his hobby; collecting and converting old 20th and 21st century media into today’s formats. So far his collection had reached about 750 DVDs all having been converted into the current format of Holopane and then sealed in and aircare system to prevent any future degradation. 

Having finally settled down and gotten comfortable again there was a knock at his door, and not expecting anyone to come over he grumbled as he got up to answer it. As he opened the door he found an out of breath delivery guy from Walmazon. 

Thomas raises his hand in greeting, “Hey man, need some water or something” Thomas asked in a slightly concerned voice.

“No, No i’m good just give me a sec to catch my breath.”

Thomas waited as the delivery guy finally managed to catch his breath. He finally stood up straight and handed Thomas a signature pad for him to sign and put his thumbprint to. Thomas quickly signed his name and pressed his thumb in the corresponding space getting a cheerful beep saying his print matches their records. 

“Here you go sir,” handing Thomas a 3’x2’ box.”I don’t know how you willingly climb to the 5th floor on a daily basis, those stairs are a killer!” 

“Stairs? Oh you didn’t see the sign saying the elevator is at the opposite end of the hallway around the corner?” Thomas chuckled wryly at the now exasperated delivery man “ knowing the kids in this building they probably hid the sign behind a potted plant the owner keeps on the ground floor.” 

“Oh you have to be frickin kidding me!” he moans as the delivery man’s shoulders slump from exhaustion and annoyance. 

“Yep, just follow this hall down that way,” Thomas said, pointing the opposite way the delivery guy came from “and the elevator will be just around the corner, also here’s $10 tip for the trouble.” 

“Thanks” says the man as he slowly walks towards his reward for the unnecessary climb up. 

Thomas shuts the door and takes his package to his new entertainment room hoping it will be one of his newest purchases. After nearly a year of searching he finally managed to track down someone who was willing to part with a couple complete series’ from the now defunct and barely memorable Hasbro Corporation. They had gone under about 100 years prior when they tried to combine one of their current toy lines with a fairly sophisticated AI program. Due to improper usage or possibly a failure in the programing itself, the toys managed to bring harm to their owners. Grabbing a nearby pair of scissors, Thomas opens the box and sees a purple box under the shipping papers. Slightly hopeful that it will be the Transformer series he had wanted, he was slightly disappointed when he saw a oddly colored rainbow with 6 ponies at the end of it with the title My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic written just above the ponies. 

“This box is in great condition for something that should be well over 150 years old!” he exclaimed as he grabbed the shipping papers to make sure they were right. The papers read “1 Master set of the series MLP:FIM”. As he turned back to the box he noticed an envelope that had been hidden by the shipping papers. While the outside of the envelope had nothing, on the inside it had a one-page letter handwritten addressed directly to him. 

Dear Mr. Crewe

Thank for purchase this Master Set for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I know you have to be asking yourself what the Tartarus does Master set mean for what we here at Disco Riders Media have sent you. What you have is the discs used for when Hasbro wanted to print new copies of this series making this a one of a kind relic from a bygone era. Our “family” has kept these master discs in as near mint as they could be for generations, and after hearing about your hobby we thought now would be a good time to reintroduce the world to something Interesting and you seems to be just the person to do it. While the discs are quite old they have been expertly preserved so they should function now just as well as when they were first manufactured, meaning you have plenty of time to watch them before converting and sealing them. 
Sincerely,



Dean Scions



“Well then, that makes this all the more rare than I thought it was.” 

Thomas quickly pulled the set from cardboard box it came in and set it on his desks. Taking a quick look at the box, he saw ten DVD cases marked with their seasons and divider on the right filling up space to allow for more DVDs had there been more seasons. Knowing what these were and how old they were, Thomas decided to not touch them directly so he grabbed his pair of no-touch bracelets. Once on his wrists and powered on, they created a nano-meter thick field around his hands allowing him the dexterity of his fingers without the ability to actually leave anything on the discs. Pulling out the first season he looked at the case, finding a picture of a purple unicorn on the cover with a synopsis of the show and characters on the back. Looking back at the top of the box and the ponies at the end of the rainbow he tries to connect the names to images. 

“So we’ve got Rarity, the white unicorn. Pinkie pie, the overly pink one, and if she’s not then I don’t get the writers. Twilight Sparkle, the purple unicorn, who was on the front of the season 1 case so she must be the main character. Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus. Applejack, the only one wearing anything and comes off as an ancient cowgirl.” Thomas shakes his head in bewilderment at that. “And last but not least Rainbow Dash, another obvious name which if I'm wrong will cause me to want to smack the creators!” 

Looking back at the case in his hand he opens it up seeing a four fairly non-descript DVDs with a simple labels saying MLP:FIM S01 E01-07, MLP:FIM S01 E08-13,MLP:FIM S01 E14-19, and MLP:FIM S01 E20-26. 

“Well That’s a simple system to understand their order, since it doesn’t look like there's a list of the episode titles in the case hopefully there will be one on the disc themselves.” 

Popping disc 1 out of the case and slowly placing it into the tray of his custom built DVD player in his PC, he closes it and listens for the tell tale sound of it being read correctly. Soon a window pops up on his display and shows him the content of the disc. Seven video files with the same naming scheme as the disc itself and a simple text file containing the episode titles. 

“You know what let’s do what Mr. Scions suggested and watch a few of these before I get started on the conversion and since I finally got this room setup might as well test the VAR Glasses as well”. Thomas quickly loads the Virtual/Augmented Reality program and loaded in the first episode named “Friendship is Magic Part 1” and set it for a thirty second delay. After having made sure nothing is in the way and grabbing the controller, Thomas stands in the middle of the room on a simple 360 degree treadmill and puts the glasses on and waits. ten seconds later he’s greeted with a table and a book. “Not quite what I expected the show to open with…” The book slowly opens with a woman narrating the story of the two sisters and a brief history of Equestria. As the story finishes the Intro song starts and nearly cause Thomas to fall over as the constant scene changes showing the characters kept whizzing by. “ I really don’t know how this works but being able to see beyond what a 2d image would show is great. This is the most impressive program ever!” 

As the theme ended he was greeted with the sight of Twilight Sparkle Walking towards him, he quickly walked out of her probable path know it wasn’t necessary but it still felt better know he wouldn’t have to possible watch a character walk right through himself. Twilight was quickly stopped by 3 ponies who asked if she was going to a Moondancers party but she quickly made something up about studying and took off. Pointing the controller in his left hand at Twilight and pushing a button he selects her as a follow target and get pulled quickly behind her. Knowing who she is Thomas knows the scene would have followed her anyway but he didn’t quite know at what pace and position so making her the follow target kept him with her the whole trip. She quite quickly came to a tower and ran up the winding staircase quite thankful he didn’t need to climb that himself. As she came to the top yelling for someone named Spike she through the doors open. “Ooh that had to hurt” Thomas says to himself as even he heard the thump from the other side of the door when it was opened.

Thomas walked in ahead of Twilight seeing a small purple and green lizard laying stunned on the ground. “Well I would guess that’s Spike.”Thomas mutters.  Twilight was quick to enter the room, but it took her a minute to even notice Spike and hadn’t even noticed she smacked him with the door, only wondering what was stuck on his tail. Thomas stopped paying attention to them for a few minutes and wandered around the room taking in all the detail that VAR managed to fill in. Suddenly finding himself on the second floor next to twilight as she read out loud about some mythical mare in the moon. Thomas turned towards Spikes voice as he answer Twilight and noticed that Spike was in quite the precarious position. 

Suddenly finding himself on the first floor again due to the tether, he hadn’t noticed how Twilight had gotten down so fast to save Spike. Curious about the cause he pushed the pause button on the controller and nothing happened, Twilight continued her dictation to spike and Thomas stared confusedly at the scene continuing to play out. “That's really weird,” he tried to rewind it and still nothing, ”Okay the other functions work but not those two. I wonder if it’s due the age of the files, or something wrong with VAR?” Thomas had just heard the word “books” come from spike when the world went black for a moment. 

As the color comes back, Thomas notices Twilight’s mane blowing in the breeze and realized they’re moving. Taking a look around to get his bearings, he looks down and sees land far below him. His fear of height kicks in and he screams. Part of him knows he’s still in his apartment on the ground but the now panicking half overwhelms him and he faints. 

A short time later, Thomas wakes up and sees his apartment around him. He lets out a sigh of relief. Realizing he still heard the show, he felt for the glasses on his head giving them a quick feel to see if he had broken them in the fall. Not noticing anything wrong with them, he stands up and steps upon the treadmill again and pushes the glasses back down. Immediately upon the show coming back into focus, Thomas is inundated with the sound of a part horn and a very Pink pony. 

“Surprise! Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie and I threw this party just for you!” Thomas visibly freaks out and moves quickly to the left of her. Seeing that she didn’t follow he heaved a sigh of relief that she hadn’t been talking to him, but to Twilight Sparkle who he’d been standing in. Pinkie quite quickly broke into a spiel about why she threw the party but Thomas only got about half the information as he was trying to take in the absurdity of the library being in a tree. 

He turned around just in time to see Twilight grab a bottle of something that didn’t look like a drink and pour it into a cup. He busted a gut laughing when he realized she had just drunk a large amount of hot sauce, burst into flames, and ran off. “Weird I figured I would have followed her to a new scene even without the tethering.” Thomas decided to wander near Pinkie to see what she was up to and just found her chatting happily with anyone and every pony in the room.

Thomas kept his distance as Pinkie wandered around the room and made a game of it trying to dodge and weave through the crowd without touching or passing through anything. Things got a bit weird when moving out of Pinkie’s way though. His left hand phased through a bottle tipping it over, spilling it onto the table.

Pinkie stopped dead in her tracks and looked at the bottle then slightly to the right of said table where Thomas was standing with a perplexed look on her face. Thomas was bewildered but quickly passed it off as coincidence as Pinkie pulled a roll of paper towels out of her mane and cleaned up the mess. As the party went on it time itself seemed a bit weird as Thomas watched Pinkie go from playing one game to another with random pony after random pony. Things finally seem to calm down allowing Pinkie to get Spike to tell Twilight it was time to go watch the sun rise. 

After another quick scene change, Thomas finds himself standing outside a large round building. “Hmm, Town hall, maybe an auditorium? I guess this is where things get weird”. Thomas quickly finds himself standing next to Twilight and Pinkie as they listen to the officiator announce the proceedings. Thomas watches as the curtain to the balcony is pulled open to no one. “Yep I was right this is where it gets weird.” As the ponies around Thomas begin to panic he just watches the balcony, waiting only a few moments for a blueish purple cloud to explode into a large black pony wearing blue armor. 

“Nightmare moon!” Twilight gasps. 

“Oh my beloved subjects it’s been so long since I’ve seen your precious little sun loving faces.” 

“What did you do with our Princess!?” Rainbow Dash shouted as she tried to take off to confront the villain, but was quickly stopped by Applejack as she grabbed her by the tail. 

“Hahahaha. Am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?” Nightmare moon haughtily asks the room. 

“Ooh ooh ooh, more guessing games. Um Hokey Smokes, how about Queen Meanie, no Black Snooty Black Snooty” Pinkie was cut off there as a cupcake was jammed into her mouth. 

“Does my crown no longer count now that I’ve been imprisoned for a thousand years?” Nightmare moon moved quickly from scaring Fluttershy to caressing Rarity. “Did you not recall the legends, did you not see the signs? 

“I did and I know who you are.” Twilight states matter-of-factly, forcing Nightmare moon to face her. “You’re the mare in the moon, Nightmare Moon!” The room gasps. 

“Well well well, someone remembers me. Then you also know why I’m here?” 

“You’re here to, to” Twilight looks around nervously. 

“Hahahaha. Remember this day little ponies for it was your last. For this moment forth The Night will last FOREVER. Hahahahaha” Nightmare Moon continues to laugh as her ethereal mane calls for lightning. 

Thomas’ vision goes black as the episode ends and he removes the VAR glasses and places them on the desk. “That was better than I was expecting! After a quick lunch, on to episode 2.”
> Virtual Mischief
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Virtual Mischief


Thomas sits down at his desk with his lunch and begins to go over the data VAR picked up as he went through the first episode. “So let’s see here the episode was twenty two minutes long. Really that short, the party scene felt like it was a good thirty minutes long as it was. That’s weird as hell.” Finishing up his sandwich, Thomas starts looking over the files on the disc. 

“Okay episode 1 is about 400 megs, that’s not too out of the normal for twenty two minute episode. Moving on, let’s see episode 2 is,” Thomas brought up the properties of the second file “1.2 gigs. What!? That makes no sense!” Stunned at its size, Thomas decides to check it with a more standard video player. Opening the video up in a movie player, he quickly looks at the time stamps. 

“Twenty Two minutes long, that’s as it should be. Could they have encoded this one differently? I guess that could explain it, but that still seems really weird. Oh well time to start episode 2 in VAR.”

As he’s setting up VAR he remembers what happened in the first episode with the heights. 

“Let’s see heights are a possibility in this. How to counteract it?” Seeing the second VAR remote Thomas picks it up.

“Maybe if I treat this as a game I can at least prevent myself from fainting. It may not stop the fear, but hopefully it will lessen it.” After getting the gear together, Thomas sets the timer for thirty seconds and stands back upon the treadmill. Connecting a controller to each hand, he then puts the glasses back down and waits for the expected intro.

Surprisingly, the intro never comes. Instead, Thomas is instantly assaulted with the maniacal laughter of Nightmare Moon. Thomas is caught off guard when he hears “Seize her, only she knows where the princess is!” yelled by a mare from behind him. Three guards are quick to take to the air to capture Nightmare Moon. 

“Stand back you foals!” Nightmare yells and her eyes begin to glow white. She begins to laugh once again as lightning strikes the pegasi guards out of the air. Not a moment later she wraps herself in her own mane and tail, turning into a cloud and zooms out the front door. Realizing things were going to change again, Thomas quickly tethers himself to Twilight in case she decided to make a run for it instead of there being just a quick scene change. He’s met with both as Twilight takes off pretty quickly to not get very far before a transition throws him back into the Library.

Thomas watches as Twilight puts Spike in a basket and tucks him in. 

“So Spike is a baby dragon, even for a fantasy setting that’s an odd species to have as an assistant.” Soon the other girls show up with Rainbow Dash in the lead accusing Twilight of being a spy. Applejack quickly talks Rainbow down and asks Twilight what she knows. 

“Heh I wonder is not have a horn or wings automatically throws you to one side or the other of crazy?” chuckles Thomas as he looks between Applejack and Pinkie Pie. 

“I guess that would mean having them put you somewhere in the middle.” 

Twilight finishes up saying she “...doesn’t even know what they do!” 

“The Elements of Harmony, a reference guide.” Pinkie announces as Twilight rushes over and knocks her out of the way. 

“How did you even find that?” A very stunned Twilight questions.

“It was under eeee!” Pinkie sing songs as she pronks around the room. 

“Oh.” says Twilight looking very sheepish.

Twilight starts to read from the book explaining what the Elements of Harmony are, while Thomas stares into the book trying to read it with it. Unfortunately for him, the text wasn’t in a language he could read or recognize. 

“Hmm I wonder if the studio that created this show made up their own written language or was that all scribbles?” As Twilight starts to close the book, a map falls out from the back cover. She unfolds it on the nearby table. The map itself looks pretty well worn, but it did have enough landmarks for Twilight to point out the location of the castle of the two sisters to the rest. Thomas looked up just in time to see Pinkie reach into her mane and pull out what looked like pony shaped chess pieces. “Here Twilight, you can use these to mark the landmarks we’ll need to get through the spooky Everfree forest.”

“Thanks Pinkie, these might help to possibly determine a path for me to take.” In a slightly confused voice not knowing where she pulled those from. 

“What do you mean for you to take sugarcube?” Applejack looked quite serious at Twilight. 

“We’re not about to let one of our friends just walk into the Everfree forest on her own. Right girls?” 

“Right, Yep, Of course!” The rest all agreed at once.


Twilight looks around at the rest of the mares with an incredulous expression on her face.

“Fine you can come, but give me a few to figure out how we’re going to get there.” Thomas bends down to look at the chess ponies Twilight has already placed on the map. Not quite thinking, Thomas pokes one. Thinking that his hand will simply pass through, the chess piece suddenly falls over to Thomas’s surprise and horror. 

“N-n-no way, I did not just push that over did I?” Twilight scrunches her faces but quickly uses her magic to put it back. 

“This makes no sense, but let’s try that again” Thomas reaches for another and pushes it over. Laughing quite hard to himself “I don’t know what the hell's going on, but this is great! Not only do I get to see this world this way, but I can affect it to some degree.” Thomas quickly walks over to a nearby bookshelf and tries to pick one up. His fingers don’t quite pass through the book, but they don’t seem to hold it either. So when he pulls it just flies off the shelf and onto the floor.

Pinkie pronks over to the book on the floor next to Thomas and picks it up. 

“Hey Twilight do you think we’ll need this um atlas as it seemed to fly off the shelf at us?” 

“Oh um sure Pinkie.” Twilight absent mindedly says as she continues to study the map in front of her without really looking at what Pinkie picked up. 

“Okie dokie artichokie, thanks mr shelf.” Pinkie takes the atlas and shoves it into her large poofy mane like it’s no big deal having a 2lb book in her hair. 

Thomas just stares with a manic grin on his face. 

“I can not only move objects, I can actually influence the characters around me. This has got to be the best program in the world. Why isn’t this talked about online?” Calming down a bit, Thomas notices they’re all about to leave so he quickly tethers himself to Twilight. He’s pulled along at a quick pace as all six ponies rush for the Everfree forest. 

     As they stand at the entrance, Twilight speaks up.  

“So if we follow this path, it should lead us to a cliff which will let us get a bearing on the castle if not let us see it ourselves.” Time once again seems to behave oddly as they run through the forest. Soon they were standing on a multi-tiered cliff overlooking the rest of the forest with a fairly large castle off in the distance. 

“I was right girls, there it is. Now we just need a way down that doesn’t cause us to get turned around.” 

     As the girls look for a way down, Thomas looks at the ground, which is starting to crack. Laughing to himself, he reaches down and pushes his fingers in the cracks.  

“They wanted to get down, and this will get them down.” Noticing that he’s still tethered to Twilight and she was quickly sliding down a hill, Thomas’s fear of heights started to kick in. Looking up in panic, he quickly re-tethers himself to one of the flyers, Fluttershy from the looks of it and then quickly closed his eyes. Trying to get his heavy breathing under control, he didn’t quite hear everything that was going on. He did hear Twilight scream, though thankfully it was quickly followed by a sigh of relief. Following another quick yelp and the sound of hooves on stone, Thomas finally opened his eyes. “Well it looks like they made it down with no real injuries.” Catching a blueish-purple cloud zoom down the intended path, he started to follow it as the girls made sure everyone was okay.  

“Looks like the villains following us. So maybe the rock slide was meant to happen and I just sped it up?” 

Thomas wanders up the path. He can hear the girls behind him, but they’re being quite a bit more cautious than he needs to be. At the end of the path stands a whimpering creature.  

“What the hell is that?” Walking up to it to see why it’s whimpering, he notices a rather large thorn in its paw.  

“Maybe I can save them some time and just remove this thing and it will just move on?” Thomas reaches for the thorn and tries to pull it out but it has the opposite effect and pushes on it instead. The creature lets out a blood curdling roar getting the girls attention. 

“A Manticore,” Twilight gasps “we have to get past it.” 

“So that’s what that weird amalgam of animals is.” Thomas comments to no one in particular. Thomas stands off to the side as the girls minus Fluttershy try to fight off the manticore. Rarity tries to buck it in the face and despite getting a good hit in, it doesn’t faze the beast at all. Applejack tries to ride it like a bucking bull, but is quickly thrown off. Rainbow tries to make it dizzy by quickly flying around it at high speed, but it just flicks it tail and sends her flying. All the while Fluttershy is trying to say something and the others are either ignoring her or just can’t hear her. Until she decide to make herself known. 

  “WAIT!” She yells at the top of her lungs. This of course causes both sides to stop and stare at the quiet Pegasus. She confidently walks up to the manticore.  

“Shush, it’s going to be okay.” She then nuzzles it like it’s her house cat. 

“Boy does she have some balls, just walking up to something like that.” Thomas chuckles at the absurdity. 

  “Oh you poor, poor little baby.” Fluttershy states as the manticore shows her it’s palm. 

“Little!” Rainbow Dash states, not quite believing what she’s seeing. 

“My thoughts exactly.” Thomas replies, knowing she can’t hear a word he’s saying. 

“This might hurt for just a second.” Fluttershy says smiling at the manticore as she moves her head towards the thorn. Grabbing a hold of it in her teeth, she quickly yanks it out. The manticore grabs her and roars in pain, causing the rest of the girls to scream in fear for her. In seconds, the manticore stops roaring and starts purring and licking Fluttershy in appreciation. 

“Oh you just a big ol’ baby kitty aren’t you? Oh yes you are.” Fluttershy continues her kind, compassionate words to the manticore as the rest of the girls move on. Thomas moves to follow the rest of the girls down the path as Twilight stop to talk to Fluttershy. He kind of missed their conversation as he was listening to Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash rib each other on how foolish their individual actions were.

It wasn’t long before the girls reached a rather dark part of the woods and started to complain about not being able to see much. Agreeing with them, Thomas reached up on his glasses and adjusted the brightness settings. While not really making the world around him brighter, it did wash things out in a way he could make out more shapes around them than the ponies did. Not being able to see exactly what he was walking through, his hands started to brush against some bushes. The ponies around him started to panic as the sound of something moving around them continued. As Thomas made his way to a more open area, the trees around them started to glow in a sickly red color giving them all the appearance of monsters. 

The girls begin to scream and cluster together as they tried to get away from the trees turned monsters. “Really Nightmare Moon. Is this the best you’ve got? They’re not even moving” bemoaned Thomas. The screaming started to taper off and was quickly replaced by maniacal giggling. Pinkie was bouncing around the clearing laughing and making faces at the trees. Thomas face palmed and in a rather exasperated voice said “I think she’s missing a few marbles in that head of hers.”

“Pinkie what are you doing, run!” Twilight shouted. 

“Oh girls, don’t you see?” Pinkie said with a large grin on her face just before bursting into song.

“Really Pinkie, this is how you solve a problem?” Thomas stated in a stunned voice. 

“I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised this was a kid’s show and the crazy pony looks like she’s done something like this before. But really giggling at the ghosties? Well at least it seems to be working.” The rest of the girls had calmed down and were following Pinkies example and were just laughing at the trees. This seems to work as the glow was disappearing and leaving the trees in their normal appearance.  

“Even the oppressive darkness seems to be gone. I guess the crazy pony is quite as crazy as I thought.”

Still laughing and bouncing the girls followed Pinkie onwards towards the castle. They stopped pretty abruptly when they reached a river.  

“Alright girls almost there. We just have to get across this…” Twilight says and trails off as she sees the roiling mess of a river before them. Flopping around the middle of the river was a large purple serpent.  

“What’s a sea serpent doing this far up a river?” Twilight asks. 

“Maybe it’s a river serpent Twilight” Pinkie answers in a cheerful voice. 

“I guess that could be true.” Twilight says as Rainbow just facehoofs. 

The girls move closer, overhearing the serpent mutter “What a world! What a world!” a couple of time while continuing to cry and thrash its body in the river. 

“Excuse me sir, why are you crying?” Twilight asks. 

“Well I don’t know. I was just sitting here minding my own business when this tacky little cloud of purple smoke just whisked past me and tore half of my beloved mustache clean off.” The serpent gave his explanation in a kind of whiny voice. Thomas really didn’t see much in the way of things he could do to help the girls so he decided to just stand back and let nature take its course. The serpent rose to its full height and exclaimed before falling backwards, “And now I look simply horrid!” The girls were quickly soaked from the serpent’s dramatic fall. 

“Give me a break...” moaned Rainbow Dash. 

“That’s what all the fuss is about!?” Stated Applejack 

“Why of course it is. How can you be so insensitive?” Chides Rarity as she walks towards the now prone serpent. 

“Oh just look at him, such lovely luminescent scales.” 

“I know.” whines the serpent. 

“Your expertly coiffed mane.” 

“Oh I know, I know”

“Your fabulous manicure.”

“It's so true”

“All ruined without your beautiful mustache.”

“It’s true I’m hideous.” The serpent shouts making overly dramatic moves to cover himself. 

Rarity’s face took on a rather determined look and she confidently stated.  

“I simply cannot let such a crime against fabulosity go uncorrected!” She quickly reaches over and bites off one of the serpent’s scales. 


“Ow! What did you do that for?” The serpent said in pained voice.

Rarity Brandishing the scale like a sword brought it down quickly, sheering off a large portion of her own tail. The serpent surprised by the action, quickly faints.

“Rarity, what are you doing?” Twilight asked in a confused tone.

Using her magic, Rarity picked up her tail and in a move even Thomas was surprised at, she fused it to the stub of the serpent’s missing mustache. 

“Oh ho ho ho oh, my mustache. How wonderful!” The serpent exclaimed in joy. 

Thomas looked up and saw the river was calm again and decided to see what was on the other side while girls wrapped up their conversation.  

“Not much left for them to get to the castle, looks like a pretty straight shot from here.” Thomas begins to stretch into the air and yawn as the girls start to pass him by. Due to sheer dumb luck, Rainbow passed too close to his outstretched arms and her right wing touched his fingers. Not expecting an object to hit it in the middle of the air, her wing reacted by instinct and slammed shut. Rainbows eyes shot wide open and she quickly corkscrewed into the ground. 

“Rainbow!” the girls shouted. 

“Oh shit I didn’t mean to do that!” Thomas stammered as he looked between the fallen Rainbow and his hands. 

“What happened sugarcube?” Ask Applejack as she helped Rainbow to stand. 

“I don’t know. One minute I’m flying fine then wham. It was like my right wing hit a wall and snapped shut.” Rainbow said as she tried to flex her wings. Her right wing was alright since it had snapped shut, but the left looked slightly off. 

Fluttershy had walked up to Rainbows left side and look closer at the wing and cringed.  

“I think your left wing has been knocked out of socket, but it doesn’t look broken.” 

“Well that explains why it doesn’t feel quite right.” Moaned Rainbow. Looking around she found a rather large branch and bit down on it for a moment before putting it down and turning to Applejack and Twilight.  

“Girls I know this is probably going to be a lot to ask but I can’t fix this myself.” 

“Sure what do ya need us to do sugarcube?” asks Applejack in a concerned voice. 

“Applejack can you hold me down so I can’t move, and Twilight I need you to use your magic to push my wing back into socket while I bite down on this branch.” 

“Sure, sugarcube you won’t be movin an inch.” 

Twilight blanched “Are you sure you want me to do this Rainbow, wouldn’t Rarity be the better choice?” 

“Nope. As much as I trust Rarity I don’t think she'll use the needed force without fainting before the jobs done. No offense Rarity.” 

“None taken dear, it’s probably true.” Agreed Rarity with a slightly embarrassed blush tinting her cheeks.

“Plus with Fluttershy telling you what to do, you should be able to get it done quickly.” Rainbow lies down and bites on the nearby branch. Applejack quickly settled on top of Rainbow to hold her down so she wouldn’t move. Fluttershy explained to Twilight what needed to go where and how much force was going to be needed. Thomas was looking quite sick at this turn of events knowing he actually hurt one of these ponies. He didn’t think it was possible. At the cliff, he had figured they fall turn into a cartoon pancake and pop back to normal like most cartoon characters. As Thomas continued to look on in horror, Twilight grabbed Rainbow’s entire wing in her magic. With a quick smooth motion, Twilight yanked the wing into its socket. Rainbow screamed into her branch. Thomas actually threw up into his mouth hearing this, but managed to swallow it back down. 

Rainbow spit the branch out of her mouth. 

”You can get off me now Applejack. Thanks Twilight.” She tried to move her left wing and it seemed to flap as it intended. “Well that much worked like a charm I can move it, but I won’t be flying on it for a few hours at least.” 

Thomas sighs, glad he didn’t cause any permanent damage. 

“I wonder if this is why this feature is never mentioned anywhere? I’m actually feeling something for cartoon characters.” Thomas looked over at the girls slightly concerned for them as they started to move again. 

“Well it looks like we’re about there. We just have to enter the castle and find the Elements of Harmony and we can put an end to this night.” Twilight triumphantly exclaims as they rush toward the castle. Sliding to a halt, the girls see a downed bridge stopping them from getting to the castle entrance. “Not now, we’re so close!” Yells Twilight as she stomps her hooves in frustration. 

“Throw me.” Rainbow states calmly while grinning like an idiot. 

Twilight looks at Rainbow as if she saw and alien.  

“Are you nuts Rainbow? I can’t throw you that far with any accuracy!” 

“You don’t have to. Just toss me up high enough. I may not be able to flap my wings without hurting them, but I should be able to glide that distance with little problem. Then you can just float the rope to me and I can tie it off on the pillar that’s there before the fog hid it. Wait fog, where’d that come from!?” 

“Now I’m really not going to attempt that who knows what’s waiting in that fog to chomp down on an unsuspecting pony!” Twilight shouted in disbelief.

Rainbow was about to argue back when the wind picked up. “FOALS!” Nightmare Moon had appeared on the other side of the bridge in a crack of lightning.  

“You're too late! I’ve found your precious Elements of Harmony!” She raised them above her head, showing the girls what appeared to be five stone spheres with a unique design etched into each one. “Say goodbye to the sun, my little ponies.” With those final words she looked skyward and began laughing. A glow began to form between the elements, growing ever larger and brighter until it exploded. Each element was engulfed in magical flame and launched outwards to parts unknown. 

“NOOOOO!” screamed Twilight in abject horror, and then everything went black. 

Thomas stood there stunned not sure what to think. “The villain won. That can’t be right?” as he asks this out loud, a strange noise is heard. Removing his glasses, he sees his DVD drive start to smoke. “No no no, shit stop!” Thomas quickly ran for the drive when it forcefully ejected the tray causing the DVD itself to jump from the tray to thankfully land on the desk. He yanks the DVD drive's USB cable from the back of the pc to cut power in the hopes it doesn’t cause the rest of his pc to short out. 

After calming down upon seeing nothing else wrong with the pc, he looked at the smoking dvd drive at the end of the cord.  

“Well looks like I’m going to have to build another one of these.” He said in deeply disappointed tone.  

“At least it looks like the DVD managed to survive that.” He looks to the disc and gently picks it up. To his horror the shiny silver surface starts to slowly turn black.  

“What the hell is going on here? This isn’t burnt.” Turning the disc over he see the same thing: a pure, black darkness. Sudden dread fills him as he looks towards the DVD case. Picking it up and opening it, he finds the same thing: the discs were all pitch black.  

“What no this makes no sense these weren’t anywhere near the drive!” Picking up a random season case from the box set, he opens that as well. Somehow the discs inside seemed even blacker than the first one. Unsure of what to do, he does the only thing he could do for the moment. He puts them away. “Hopefully once I get a new drive I’ll be able to salvage them.” Sighing in defeat he placed the box set on a nearby shelf and left in hopes of finding a shop that would have the parts he needed.
> Augmented Darkness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun had started to go down now. Stopping in front of a small back alley shop, Thomas sighs.

“I hope Marcus is in today” and steps inside.

“Hey Marcus you around?” The shop itself was filled with electronics, from junky ancient ham radios to a few near pristine holopane players. “Marcus!” Thomas yells once more to quickly whispering “Abigale?” Hoping to see the former and dreading the later.

“Thomas, is that you my boy?” A tall skinny man walks out from the back room causing Thomas to slump in relief.

“I’m so glad you’re the one on duty right now Marcus. Abigale would have had my hide for this.”

“And what exactly would my beautiful little fireplug want your hide for?” Marcus smiles widely as he asks.

Thomas pulls out the DVD drive from his backpack and shows it to Marcus.

“It seems my DVD drive burst into flames earlier today.” Looking pretty sheepish as he shows the damaged device.

“How in the nine hell’s did you managed to get something that uses so little power to burst into flame?”

“If I actually knew the cause I wouldn’t have done it in the first place. All I was doing was playing a recently acquired set of DVDs through VAR.” Explained Thomas in a blunt manner.

“You’re right, that shouldn’t have caused this, and you’re also correct in assuming Abbey would have had your hide for this” Marcus was Smiling even wider now.

“You’re quite lucky she just left for lunch a few minutes before you came in.”

“Whew, so do you think you could sell me the parts I need to fix this?”

“Don’t know, let me open’er up and take a look.” Marcus did just that, grabbing a couple of screwdrivers he pries the case off and looks inside. He pulls out everything and giving each piece a once over. He put them into piles of good or trashed. “Okay so it looks as though the housing and the parts that hold things together are alright and reusable. The drive motor, the electronics board, and the laser reader are trashed. I have everything except the laser.”

“Damn, well at least you have the majority of what I need. What’s it going to cost me for the parts?”

“Hmm, I think If you give me about an hour to get everything together, I’ll be able to let everything go for about seventy five bucks.”

“Really that much?"

“Hey you’re getting these at a pretty decent discount for being such a regular customer. Abbey would have charged you full price plus a pissing her off fee. And these parts are getting harder to find.”

“Alright, I’ll take your word for it. Here’s the $75 plus an extra $20 as I’m sure Abbey will be back when I pick it up in an hour.”

Marcus just laughed. “That will probably keep her from physically hitting you but you’ll still get a dressing down when she sees you.”

“Before I leave, any idea of where I might be able to get the laser as I know I can’t just use one from a newer system?”

“Yeah different frequencies and all that.” Marcus says absent mindedly as he rifles through business cards. “Actually I do have an idea on that front. Aha here it is!” Handing the card to Thomas. “You ever hear of Disco Riders Media?”

Busting out laughing, Thomas nods looking at the card. “Yeah I have they’re actually the ones who sent me my latest acquisition.”

“Really? That’s kinda odd I knew they dealt in hardware, but had no clue they trafficked in ancient media as well.” Marcus looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Well anyway they have a showroom slash warehouse a couple blocks away from here. It’s possible they might sell you the part or be able to ship you one.”

“Thanks this will help, hopefully.” Thomas entered the address into his pocket pc and handed the card back to Marcus. “Ill got check with them and then be back for the rest of the parts.”

“No problem seeya in a bit.” Marcus smiled and waved as Thomas took his leave.



***

Checking the address one last time, Thomas looks at the rather gaudy building in front of him. “I know it’s their name, but Discoballs with multicolored lights all across the entrance? I’m surprised they haven’t been sued yet over possibly causing seizures.” Stepping inside, Thomas was quite surprised to see the exact opposite. it looked like a high class antique showroom. Looking into a nearby case, he’s actually confused for a moment.

“What is that? VCR, wait weren’t those the media format before DVDs? How do they have something that old and in such good shape?” Turning away, he walks on trying to find the front counter. A moment later he finds it.

Sitting behind the desk is a young woman of maybe twenty with dyed poofy purple hair and a purple shirt. Even odder she’s got a small yellow beanie on her head with a propeller that slowly spins around as a nearby fan passes over her. With a sucker in her mouth and a nail file being brushed across her nails, it made her look exactly like and obnoxious teen valley girl. Thomas was not exactly looking forward to talking with her, but he did need help. Clearing his throat he spoke up. “Excuse me, miss?”

Immediately her demeanor changed as she quickly put away the nail file and sucker. Standing up and facing Thomas, she put on the biggest smile he’d ever seen on a real person. In a oddly sweet voice she said “Hello and welcome to Disco Riders Media. My name is Lilacs Brewers. What can I do for you today?”

Thomas really wasn’t sure what to make of her now, but he had his purpose. “H-hello my names Thomas Crewe. I was directed to your showroom by a friend and was looking for a specific part. I had hoped that not only would you have it, but be willing to sell it to me.”

She quickly came out in front of the desk with her fingers stroking her chin. “That name sounds familiar. Oh! You’re the guy Mr. Scions sent that box set of My Little Pony to.”

“Y-yeah that would be me. I didn’t know your company was so close or I would have come to just pick it up.”

“That’s okay, that box set wasn’t actually stored in this location anyway. So what exactly were you looking for?”

“Well I had built a DVD drive on my own and unfortunately as of this afternoon, it... well it burst into flames. And while I managed to get all the other necessary parts I need to rebuild it elsewhere, he didn’t have the laser needed to actually read the discs.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” The smile never quite left her face and now she seems to have this twinkle in her eye. “We do have some whole DVD players in stock, but they’re probably out of your price range and are pretty stand alone so hooking them to a pc isn’t possible. But wait here a moment and let me see if we have any spare parts in the back.” She started to actually skip away from Thomas towards the back of the showroom.

Muttering to himself “That girl is a bit too happy to be working in a place like this.” Thomas decided to look around a bit more while waiting. Most of the cases seemed to have old Tvs, a few blu ray players, and even the occasional HD-DVD. Thomas actually scoffed at that last one. “I will never understand how those things even hoped to compete with blu rays.” The next few cases had a few different varieties of holocubes. "Heh, I remember these as a child. They started out the size of a brick but every year they got a bit smaller just before the first true holopane came out." The last case seemed to have a DJ’s mixing table but it was a bit odd in it’s own right as it seemed to be a mix of old and new technology.

“I’m back!” Lilacs sing songed as she skipped back to the desk. “So I’ve got two options for you. First is this.” she said holding up a small plastic back with a small laser reader in it. “This came from a pretty broken down model we got a couple weeks ago. We can let it go for about ten bucks. To be honest though with how bad of shape the DVD player was that we pulled it from, I can’t guarantee it will even work.” Putting the back down and picking up the small box showing it to Thomas. “Then we have this. It’s not quite what you asked for, but it will do what you want. It’s a multi-format laser meaning it can read nearly anything from DVD to even the current holopanes. The only thing it can’t are those HD-DVDs as those for some reason refuse to give up their secrets to anything but their own hardware. Mr. Scions actually knows someone who can still make these so we have a couple boxes in the back for them. They don’t really work in fixing old hardware, but they’re great in custom jobs.” She finished her spiel with a wave of her hand and a quick spin.

“That actually sounds quite useful, but how much is it going to cost me?” Thomas asked not looking too hopeful.

“Well you're in luck. Since we have a fairly decent stockpile of these and can get more easily enough I can sell it to you for say thirty five bucks.”

“Great I’ll take it!” Thomas reached for his wallet and pulled out the needed cash and hands it over.”

“Thanks, just let me ring that up. She skipped behind the counter and rings up his purchase, hands him a bag and his receipt.

“Thanks again for the purchase and please come back if you need anything else.” As Thomas grabbed his package, Lilacs grabs her nail file and sucker, then went back to what she was doing before he showed up like he hadn’t even been there.

“That girl is just plain off.” Thomas said to himself as he shook his head in disbelief. “Alright, first up dinner then I’ll pick up my parts from Marcus.”



***

About an hour later, Thomas once again stands in Marcus’s shop.

“Hey Marcus, I’m back” Shouts Thomas to the back room.

“He’s not here hoarder” says a voice coming from behind Thomas.

“Shit.” whispers Thomas as he turns around. “Hey Abbigale. First that was my parents, I only collect one specific type of thing. Second my floors are clean of clutter. My ex-roommate was messier than me.”

Abbigale was a large woman, not fat no, but looked like she could stand eye to eye with a black bear and maybe bench press it. “Harrumph. Marcus managed to get everything you needed and I put it together except for the part you’re missing.”

“T-thanks, but why did you do that?”

“Marcus said you paid extra for it.”

“Oh right, I did.”

Abbigale stomped off and came back moments later with Thomas’ drive.

“Here, try not to set this one on fire or I’m going to make sure using your pc becomes a monumental task.”

“Yeah sure, thanks I’ll do my best to prevent any further accidents.” he says with the last bit under his breath. “Tell Marcus thanks for the tip and I’ll catch him later.” Thomas quickly leaves the shop not wanting to stay there under that woman’s scornful gaze. “I don’t even know what I did to make her hate me, but Marcus claims she has a heart of gold. I find that hard to believe though.” He raced home as it was now dark and he didn’t want to get caught by any muggers. The City may be shiny, but in the dead of night only the richest areas of town are truly safe.



***

Reaching home a short time later, Thomas sets up everything he needs to finish fixing the DVD drive.

“Hopefully this won’t take me to long to solder this into place. Then I can check on one of those discs before I head to bed.” It took Thomas the better part of an hour to get the piece in and tested to see if the drive would perform correctly. He reconnected it to his pc and it was found quite quickly.

“Sweet we have connection. Now let’s see if it can see anything on this disc.” Thomas gently picked up the the disc and put it into the tray and pushed it inside.

“Now for the moment of truth.” After a few tense moments of noise, a window finally popped up on the screen.

“Yes! All the files look like they’re there. Although my mind must be playing tricks on me I could have sworn the second file was three times the size of the first? Let’s try episode 3.” Using the normal media player, Thomas started up episode 3 and waited for the intro. Instead to his horror he saw images of a dead world. Trees had no leaves, there were no ponies in sight and the only light came from the moon. The camera quickly panned towards canterlot to show the entire city had collapsed down the mountain.

“What the ever loving hell is going on here.” Thomas quickly shut it off and shut down his pc. “Alright today has been stressful I’ll come back to this tomorrow maybe it will make some more sense.”



***

Thomas slept restlessly as the night outside his windows began to take on a sinister form. “BEEP BEEP BEEP” the sound emanated from Thomas’s pocket pc and was blasting at it’s max volume. Bolting upright and grabbing the device, Thomas looked down expecting a phone call, but was instead greeted by the emergency broadcast system telling him to check his TV for more information. “What the hell, the sun hasn’t even come up yet. It’s way too early for this shit.” Getting up begrudgingly, Thomas made his way to his TV to check the news.

Breaking New scrolled by on the TV as the local anchor finally showed up.

“At 6am this morning a large dark object passed between the earth and the sun blocking ninety-nine percent of it’s light reaching us, leaving the world in it’s current state of perpetual twilight. In a possible related event, the moon has halted its rotation around the earth and has stopped in our portion of the hemisphere.” Thomas quickly ran to his bedroom and onto his balcony. There at the top of the sky was the moon and off to the east just barely visible between two skyscrapers was the sun or at least what was left of it. Thomas went back inside and looked at the TV once more. “Scientists are unsure what exactly is blocking the sun, as the light still being given off blinds their sensors from here. They have at the behest of the world government sent a ship to investigate in the hopes of removing the obstruction.”

Thomas ran for his computer in the hopes of getting some more up to date news or maybe a live feed from the ship as it closed in on the dark mass. Sitting down and turning it on, he found a strange sight. Instead of his normal desktop and wallpaper, he found the VAR program up and running with a two minute delay set for Episode 2. Not really wanting to deal with it, he tried to close it down, but the program refused and actually added time to the delay. He began trying everything he could think of to get the program to shut down, but nothing worked. He couldn’t even shut down his PC at this point.

Screaming in frustration, Thomas stood up.

“Fine you want me to see what ever you going to show me fine!” He grabbed his glasses and both controllers and stood upon the treadmill. As he dropped the glasses in front of his eyes, the time hit zero and Thomas was inundated with sky blue eyes. He back pedaled in fear at this, nearly falling on his ass, but managed to save himself. He was looking at a very mad Pinkie Pie. Her hair was limp, she was growling and looking directly at Thomas.
“YOU!” She shouted “You're at fault for this!”

“Wha-wha-wha-what?!” Thomas stammers as he moves to the side, but Pinkie just kept him in the center of her vision.
“I can see you and apparently hear you now, you evil spirit. It’s your fault Dashie got hurt. It’s your fault Nightmare Moon got to the Elements before us, and it’s your fault this world is going to die! I just hope I can find a way to destroy you before we all freeze to death!” Pinkie said through gritted angry teeth.

“But I didn’t intend for this to happen! I didn’t even know I could affect this world like that.” whimpered Thomas as he looked visibly shamed and scared by the pink pony in front of him.

“You didn’t know? You didn’t know!” she yelled. A moment later she calmed down. “Then you're going to help help us fix this mess aren’t you.”

“S-sure I’ll help you.” Stammered Thomas although he wasn’t sure how he was going to do that.

“Pinkie who are you talking to over there?” Applejack questioned.

“The spirit I told you about earlier, the one I said hurt Dash and made her mess up.”

“Sugarcube, there is no spirit. I tried to tell you earlier it was all an accident and we’ll figure something out.” Applejack reasoned unsuccessfully.

“There is so a spirit and I’ll prove it!” Pinkie reached out for Thomas’s hand, somehow grabbing hold and pulled Thomas towards her. A sudden gasp filled the room as all eyes fell on Thomas. Five sets of angry eyes.

“Uh-oh!” was the last thing he said before a bolt of magic struck him in the chest.
> Virtually Apologetic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Virtually Apologetic


Thomas could see nothing. It wasn’t the darkness of being in a pitch black room. It was a complete lack of any sort of stimulus. He was pretty sure he wasn’t dead as he was still thinking pretty clearly but at the same time he couldn’t even hear his own heart beat. Slowly, through pinpricks of light and snippets of sound, the world began to reform in front of him again. As the light intensified he saw his hands reforming in front of him and beyond that the ponies he was supposed to be helping. Soon there was enough sound that he could actually make out what the girls were saying.

“Twilight why did you shoot him? He said his was going to help us.” Pinkie Pie questioned.

“Well you did call him an evil spirit, Pinkie. Why would I allow something that caused this mess to, help us, when he could betray us in the end.” Stated Twilight in a matter of fact matter voice.

“I’m sorry” Thomas said. It seemed none of the girls heard him though and just kept arguing over what they needed to do. “I’M Sorry!” he yelled this time.

All six ponies turned to face him. Five of them were shocked to see him. Pinkie on the other hand looked happy. Her mane poofed back into it’s normal shape and her eyes sparkled in delight.

“You’re not dead!” exclaimed Pinkie as she came running at Thomas. In a quick leap Pinkie tried to tackle hug Thomas but passed right through him.

Looking a bit shocked Thomas quickly spun around. Reaching out he put his hands around Pinkie’s barrel and lifted her to her hooves. “Pinkie? Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yepperoonie!” Pinkie happily announced as she pronked back towards the other girls. Said girls still looked quite stunned.

Looking back at the rest of the girls Thomas spoke up. “I’m sorry. I’m not an evil spirit, and what I did to Rainbow Dash was an accident.”

After hearing this Rainbow was the first to snap out of the stunned trance and flew right into Thomas’s face. “You knocked my wing out of its socket, and allowed Nightmare Moon to win! How was that an accident!?” Rainbow yelled forcing Thomas to step back a bit.

“I, um, can explain the first part.” Thomas meekly replied hoping Rainbow would calm down enough to say anything.

Rainbow was suddenly covered in a purple aura as Twilight pulled her away and set her on the ground. The glow left Rainbow but didn’t leave Twilight’s horn as she tried to stare holes in Thomas.

“You have one chance to tell us what you’ve done and how we can fix this. If I don’t like what I hear I’m just going to start blasting you till you don’t come back” Twilight growled out.

“Okay. As Pinkie said I was following you for quite some time mostly just watching events unfold. I didn’t believe I could do much more then watch till an accident at Pinkie’s party. I moved something. It was an accident but I moved something I shouldn’t have been able to even touch. When I realized I could influence this world I tried to have a bit of fun.” The girls did not look one bit happy as Thomas began his explanation. He continued explaining his part in their adventure.

“So you were the one making bushes rattle in the forest?” Pinkie giggled as she asked.

“Yeah that was me I hadn’t expected to moved them so much without trying to. When you all reached the serpent, I noticed I couldn’t do anything so I went to the other side of the river to see if there were any other traps. While waiting for you on the other side I began to stretch, and didn’t notice as Rainbow quickly flew through my hand. It happened so quickly I didn’t have much time to even react before she hit the ground.”

Thomas finished his story looking downcast, waiting for Twilight to not believe him and start blasting him. The blast never came, so he looked at the girls who all seemed to be thinking the situation over.

“See girls, I told you he was willing to help us fix this problem. Right Mr. Spirit?” Stated Pinkie with a large smile on her face.

“Yeah I’ll help. I’m really not sure how I’m going to do that but I’ll do my best. Also my name is Thomas.

Pinkie sat down next to Thomas as the rest of the girls began to whisper amongst each other trying to decide what to do. Thomas reached down and absentmindedly scratched behind Pinkie’s ear.

“Oh that feels nice can you do the other one as well?”

“Um sure.” Thomas said as he switched ears.

Suddenly a simple melody began to play from Thomas’s pants pocket. On instinct he reached into his pants and pulled out his pocket pc. He quickly brought it to the front of his face to see what message he received. “Wait, why can I see this in here?”

“See what silly?” Asked Pinkie.

“This,” Thomas showed Pinkie the pocket pc “it shouldn’t show up here since It should be with my physical body.”

Looking back at the screen Thomas saw an email and attachment from Disco Riders Media. It was another letter from Mr. Scions.

Dear Mr. Crewe

I hope this email reaches you at a good time Mr. Crewe. Being that you’re such an esteemed customer of ours we thought of you when we decided to start beta testing our new application. Please install the attached file and please let us know what you think about it at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely Dean Scions

While very confused at this turn of events Thomas did what the email asked and tapped the attachment and installed the application. The app icon was of a chimeric creature with parts from quite a few animals. It seemed to have a bird’s talon, a paw of a large cat, a long serpentine body, and legs that Thomas couldn’t quite make out. The words AnyMapWiki were across the bottom. Laughing as the ridiculous name Thomas tapped the icon and was greeted by a text box asking use current location? Thomas quickly tapped yes and was instantly floored when a map labeled Equestria Ponyville area came on the screen.

“P-Pinkie? Is this where we are right now?” Thomas asked as he showed Pinkie the screen.

“Ooooh, that’s exactly where we are!” Pinkie tried to touch the device with her hoof and it passed right through.

Touching where it looked like Pinkie wanted to tap caused the map to zoom in on Golden Oaks Library. Thomas looked on dumbfounded as he saw markers on the map for himself, Pinkie, and the other girls across the room. “How the, ever loving monstrosities, did this app get a map of equestria and where we currently are!?”

As soon as the question was uttered a rapidly rotating cube appeared on the screen. Each face of the cube showed one of three figures. The same chimeric being that was the app icon itself, a slightly more feminine version of said being, and the last was an odd purple pony with a yellow beanie on her head. The cube finally slowed down and stopped on the pony who was making raspberry noises with her mouth and hoof. The pony quickly stopped what she was doing and looked towards the screen and exclaimed in a voice that sounded familiar.

“Hi I’m Screwball your randomly chosen helper. What can I help you find?

Thomas was once again struck dumb as all he could utter was “Ummm, what?”

“The Elements of Harmony!” Pinkie shouted at screwball.

“I’m not sure that’s going to work Pinkie.” Thomas said as Screwball on the screen pulled out a magnifying glass and made the motion of looking around.

“Elements of Harmony found!” Chirped Screwball as she faded away showing a full map of Equestria with five markers.

Pinkie jumped up excitedly “Hey girls, we found them!”

Twilight turns around eyes Pinkie and Thomas in a critical manner. “What do you mean you’ve found the them?”

“It seems I’ve gained a map that shows their location.” Thomas points his device in Twilight’s direction.

Twilight Rushed over and looked at the device that Thomas was pointing at her and noticed markers on the map showing her new friends cutie marks over multiple locations across the map.

“How Accurate is this map?” Twilight asked Thomas.

“I’m not completely sure as I didn’t know I could do this until a few minutes ago. It did have markers for all of us in Golden Oaks Library in the exact positions we were in the room.” Thomas shows twilight what he meant by zooming back in on the library. “See this marker is me, that one is Pinkie and your’s has moved to this side of the room. So I would say it looks pretty accurate.”

Twilight tried to grab the device in her magic but couldn’t seem to get ahold of any part of it. She looked quite annoyed at Thomas for preventing her from taking the device.

“Sorry Twilight I have no control over that. If you can get a paper map of Equestria I can point out on it what my map has.” Thomas says apologetic manner.

Twilight goes back to the table in the middle of the room and begins to rummage through all the maps she has. Finally pulling out a large map that seems to cover all of Equestria and it’s surrounding know lands.

“Here this should work.” Twilight states as she finishes smoothing out the map.

“Hey Pinkie?” Thomas looks over at Pinkie. “Do you happen to have those game pieces you used before you went into the Everfree forest?”

“Sure I do!” Pinkie quickly reaches into her mane and pulls out a random assortment of game pieces. She selects five pony shaped figures that match up with her and her friends tribal types, and places them on the map.

“Those will do. Thanks Pinkie.” Thomas smiles at Pinkie as he grabs a random pony piece. Looking between his pocket pc and the map he grins. “Applejacks cutie mark is over here in a place called Tall Tale.” Placing the earth pony piece on the map, he grabs up another one. “Rainbow Dash’s is in Griffonstone? There are griffons in this world?” Thomas asks as he places the pegasus piece down on the map.

Twilight speaking up says “Yes, there are griffons, minotaurs, dragons, and quite a few other races on Equis.”

“Interesting.” Thomas looks intrigued at the prospects of seeing these other races on this adventure. “Let's see Rarity’s mark showed up in Manehatten.” Placing the unicorn shaped piece upon the city that most looked like something from his world. “Next is Fluttershy’s, and it seems to have appeared in… The Bad Lands?” At hearing her name and where the element landed Fluttershy eeped and dived underneath a nearby chair. “Why is it called the bad lands?”

Rarity Spoke up this time, “Nothing grows there, Nothing lives there, and it’s nothing but wasteland. The place is just so uncouth, and no respectable pony would want to go there of their own free will.”

“That seems like a valid reason to name it that.” Thomas shakes his head at the thought of having to cross a barren wasteland like that. “Last but not least, Pinkies mark. It looks like it’s in a place called Los Pegasus.”

“Woooweee, I’ve always wanted to see these places!” Pinkie chirped happily as she bounces in place.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack look at each other then towards Thomas. “Uh, sugarcube…” Applejack starts.

“Where’s Twilight’s mark on the map? Huh, are you holding out on us?” Rainbow asks in an accusing manner.

“Rainbow Dash, don’t you remember the book says the sixth element will make itself know when the other five are brought together.” Twilight says looking at Rainbow and Applejack.

“So..” Applejack Spoke up again. “We believe we know where to go, but do we have a plan on how to get to these places. Will we be splitting up tackling each location on our own or what?”

“For a pony as awesome as I am going to Griffonstone should be no problem for me!” Boasts Rainbow dash.

Fluttershy at the prospect of having to goto the Bad lands on her own causes her to squeak “The Bad Lands are scary!” over and over to herself from under her chair.

Twilight looks over at Rainbow Dash and sighs. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea. It might be faster, but there’s no way to know what we’ll find at each location.”

Thomas coughs into his fist and speaks up. “I know I really shouldn’t have any say in this, but I feel like I should point out that you might not have made it through the Everfree if you had gone alone. You all seem to work much better together then you do apart.”

Pinkie quickly grabs every one else but Thomas and pulls them into a hug. “Yes, we should adventure together. It’s always more fun together. We could be an Adventurer Party!” Giggling at her own joke she lets the rest go.

“While it’s not going to be fun or a party.” Twilight looks pointedly at Pinkie as she says this. “Her and Thomas are right we really should go together. There’s safety in numbers, and while Nightmare Moon most likely thinks we’re defeated and disheartened she could change her mind and try to capture us anyway.”

They all nodded their heads in agreement, and look towards the map.

“So where to first?” Rarity asked.

“I think we should go to Tall Tale first. It’s the closest by train and we won’t have to pass through Canterlot to get there.” Twilight states as she points out the nearest route.

“Are the trains still running sugarcube?” Applejack asks.

“Even if they’re not Applejack we’ll just borrow one if we have to. I know I’d rather not have to do such a thing but if that’s the only way we’re going to get to Tall Tale then so be it.” Twilight states defiantly.

“Twilight, how long will it take you to get to Tall Tale from here?” Thomas asked

“If everything goes right, then it should take about a day to reach Tall Tale.”

Thomas looked down as his pocket pc to see if he could get a sense of scale of how long it will take to get around Equestria. As Thomas looks around the map his pocket pc begins to fade from his view.

“Um, girls somethings wrong. I can’t see my map any more.”

The girls turned towards Thomas and Pinkie begins to speak, but nothing comes out of her mouth as the world around him began to speed up and pull away. A sudden sound of a rubber band snapping causes Thomas to fall back. Landing on his ass, he realized he wasn’t in Equestria anymore. Taking off his glasses he look towards his pc and saw an odd sight. On his screen he saw the words PLEASE INSERT DISC 2 NOW.
> Augmented Information Gathering
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Augmented Information Gathering



“This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder. How does a world need a disc change to continue its existence?” Reaching for the disc drive he pops out the original disc and puts it back into its case. He looks at the next disc before he puts it into the drive and he notices that while still dark in color it has a slight orangish hue to it. Deciding he’s had enough weirdness today to question it he sticks the disc into the drive and closes it. The VAR program starts reading the disc and replaces the INSERT DISC 2 message with a new one. A timer, with a six hour count down on it.

“Oh we’re doing this again are we? I will gladly put these glasses back on and jump back in. I really don’t want to wait!” Thomas grunts at his PC. He tries to close the window to stop the timer but is stopped when another window pops up. It reads: Currently Processing. Cannot continue playback till processing finishes. Stopping this process will cause irreparable harm to your data. Do you wish to continue. A yes or no prompt displays at the bottom of the window. Sighing Thomas clicks no and the window closes leaving the six hour timer still visible.

“Okay so I can’t get back for six hours. The sun is slowly being consumed by shadow. Not that I can physically do anything about that. The world so far hasn’t devolved into panic and looting, yet.” Thomas looks at the time on his PC its 9:30am. “I was only in there for half an hour? It felt longer than that. Well it looks like I have time to kill, I might as well go see if I can meet Mr. Scions and see how he managed to get his application to show Equestria.”

With Time to spare Thomas takes a shower and has a bowl of cereal before he has to leave. Looking at the clock one last time Thomas grabs everything he thinks he’ll need and walks out the door locking it behind him.

The sky outside still looks like the sun had just set, but the sun’s flickering light could still be seen in the sky. Surprisingly there weren’t that many people around. The few that were around stared up at the sky, some in fear and some in wonder. Thomas not wanting to get too caught up in the group of gawkers began to walk towards the nearest subway terminal.

“Hey Thomas!” A large well dressed man shouted at him as he walked by. While Thomas new this man was a neighbor a few doors down from him he couldn’t remember his name.

“H-hey.” Thomas replied while waving in an sloppy acknowledgment of the man.

“This is nuts, isn’t it?” The man smiled warmly. “I don’t think something like this has ever happened before.”

“You’re probably right, I don’t think I’ve ever read about anything like this happening in our history before. Hopefully it’s just a passing cloud of some deep space dust and this will get cleared up quickly.” Smiling back Thomas replies trying to keep the worry from his voice.

“Well last I heard the ship they sent to go look should reach a better visual range in twelve hours or so. I’m with you though I think it’s just some space dust blowing in the cosmic winds.” The man looks back towards the sky as he says this.

Putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hey man gotta go I’ll see ya around.” Thomas begins moving again and waves towards the man.

“Later Thomas!” The man shouts at the receding Thomas.

A few minutes later Thomas reaches the subway terminal. Buying a ticket he sits down to wait for the next train. Bored and anxious he pulls out his pocket pc to take his mind off of the wait. Looking at the screen he notices that the icon for Anymapwiki has a exclamation point attached to it signifying a notification. Not sure what to expect Thomas opens the app. The map still shows Equestria, but it appears to be moving slightly to the left. Not exactly sure what is happening Thomas taps a button to center on the current target. The map zooms in but a bit to far as all it’s showing is a pink dot.

“What the…” Thomas utters to himself as he zooms the map out a bit to get a better idea of what he’s seeing. Now seeing six dots moving at a pretty good speed on what appears to be train tracks on the map he realizes the dot he’s locked onto must be Pinkie Pie. “If this is showing that the girls are moving towards Tall Tale then they at least decided to stay together. Though I have a feeling Pinkies going to be mad at me if I make it back to them.” Not sure exactly what to make of this new situation, Thomas closes the application. “I can only hope that when the processing finishes it puts me with them and not back in Ponyville.” Sighing to himself Thomas stands and heads for the arriving train.

***

Standing once again in front of Disco Riders Media, Thomas almost couldn’t see the door. The Disco balls were actually almost blinding in the darker light. Being partially blind Thomas had to feel around for the door.

Finally getting inside his eyes were still seeing spots when he decided to voice his displeasure at the display. “I know it’s your company name but do you really need those flashing so brightly outside?”

His eye sight finally returning to normal. Thomas expected to find Lilacs at the desk as she was yesterday, but to his surprise it was someone new. Standing behind the desk waiting for him with another strange smile on her face, was a woman who looked to be in her late thirties. She was wearing a dress suit but none of the pieces really matched with each other. The jacket consisted of dark red and purple splotches of varying shapes and size. The skirt was of similar design but differing shades of blue and green.  Next to the woman was a small TV in place of where Lilacs fan had been. It looked to be on the Science and Technology channel. Thomas could just faintly make out that they were discussing the current sun issue.

“Hello!” stated the woman with mischievous sparkle to her eyes. “ You must be Mr. Crewe. Dean has been saying nothing but good things about you. Lilacs seemed to think you were pretty interesting as well. My name’s Iris Deputes, but you can just call me Iris.”

“Hello, yeah I’m Thomas.” he was quite surprised that she knew who he was. While there has been contact between him and their company, he hadn’t expected a random employee to know about it. “Actually speaking of Mr. Scions, I was hoping that I could actually talk to him today. Is that at all possible?”

“I’m sorry but my father is actually busy today dealing with one of our subsidiaries.” Iris states, her smile never wavering.

“Father.” Thomas stutters out. “Subsidiaries?” he was even more surprised to hear they were that big of a company.

“Yep. This office was the first for us so it’s daily operation is a bit of a family affair. Lilacs being my daughter and all.” Iris was quite happy to explain her family’s business. “While Disco Riders Media is a decent sized company, we actually own quite a few companies in adjacent technologies. A couple of examples you might know? Ah, we have one factory that created the special plastics used in making holodiscs. And the location my father is currently at is the one who designed the VAR program that everyone seems to be using.”

“Wait you made VAR!?” Thomas’s eyes go wide at this knowledge.

Waving her hands in a dismissive manner “Oh no, we didn’t make it. My father may have given them some suggestions on which way they should go with it in marketing it. But we had no real hand in programing it.” Looking thoughtful. “I wish we could take credit for the creation of VAR but that wouldn’t be very truthful.”

“That’s still impressive either way. I guess I can tell you why I’m here. Earlier today Mr. Scions sent me a program to try out and I was wondering how it knew what I was doing?.” Thomas became a bit anxious as he ask as he really didn’t want to look like a complete idiot.

“Oh you must mean the Anymapwiki. Yes Dean mentioned he’d be sending that on to a few beta testers. With the way he gushed about you I was pretty sure you’d end up being one. As for how it works? I can’t really tell you everything about it, company secrets and all that.” at the last comment she winked at Thomas.

“I can understand that, but certain things about it just seem kinda strange.” Thomas says pulling out his pocket pc. The look on her face changed for just a moment. He wasn’t quite sure exactly what it meant but it was quickly replaced with the smile once more.

“In general if your device is connected to a system running VAR it can connect to it and use it’s data to extrapolate a map of your surrounding area and any characters it deems important are tagged as points of interest.” Turning her head suddenly towards the TV, she quickly begins to turn it up a bit. “Sorry to interrupt our conversation but I’ve been waiting for this announcement all week.”

“Um sure no problem I can come back if you want me too?” Thomas was surprised and put off at this turn of events but decided to be polite.

“No you don’t need to leave it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes and you might find this interesting.” She hadn’t even taken her eyes off the screen as she says this but her voice give Thomas the feeling she might be right, so he says put.

On the screen a man in a three piece suit stood at a podium. Behind him was a logo for Elysian Laboratories, and Vox Industries. In front seemed to be a large group of press agents. “Welcome, This will be a pretty short announcement, but we will be taking some questions from the associated press.” The man shuffled some papers on the podium. “At 8:00pm last night the United Nations turned over the global ban on AI development. This ban had been put in place about one hundred  years ago. A toy company, of all things, created an AI controlled toy line that caused quite a bit of property damage and the loss of 5 innocent lives. At the time, fear of such sophisticated AI’s caused the governments of the world to ban any AI more sophisticated than a self driving car. Due to recent studies they now believe we have the necessary tech and knowledge to keep any future AI’s from running amuck. This will hopefully allow us to create AI’s powerful enough to send on longer space missions and finally allow us to leave our own solar system. I will now open the forum to questions from the press.”

The man behind the podium pointed towards a gangly young man with a press badge on his hat and a tablet in his hands. Said young man stood up and taking one last look at his tablet spoke up. ”Does this mean we will soon have AI driven sex bots?” Half the reporters burst out laughing, the other half just glared at the sheer audacity of the young man.

The man on stage face palmed so hard it could be heard over the microphone. “Really the first thing you want to ask is that…”

Iris burst into laughter so loud it drowned out anything else the man on screen could have been saying to rebuke the reporter. Taking a good minute to calm down she finally shut off the TV and turned back to Thomas. “That reporter is a genius!”

“What!? How is asking about sex bots a genius move by anyone?” Thomas ask completely dumbfounded on how that made any bit of sense.

“There’s still plenty of fear over truly sophisticated AIs. By asking such a ridiculous question he’s tempered their fear with humor and will probably lead to more direct logistical questions, then emotional fear mongering ones.” Iris looked quite amused that Thomas didn’t realize this.

Looking thoughtful Thomas said “I really hadn’t thought of that possibility. Nor would I have thought a reporter capable of being unbiased enough to try making his fellow reporters unbiased as well.”

“Now let’s get back your strangeness issue. As a curiosity after starting the app up what helper did you end up with?” Iris’s smile had returned again but with a small tinge of mania to it, like she hoped for some specific outcome from Thomas.

“I got Screwball, a small pinkish purple pony. Which is really coincidental with the show I happen to be using the app for.” Said Thomas as he looked back at his pocket pc.

Iris’s smile faltered for just a moment but quickly came back. “She should be an interesting helper for you.” Laughing a bit. "Each helper has a slightly different style in how they offer help. Now if you’ll let me see your device I’ll run a quick diagnostic on the program and make sure it’s running the way it’s supposed to.”

“Oh, sure. Here you go.” He said as he passed the pocket pc over to Iris.

Taking the device she placed it on the desk and made some extra room. “I’ll be right back” She claims as she walked towards the back room. She wasn’t gone for too long and came back with a laptop. Setting up said laptop she began hooking up the pocket pc to it. “This shouldn’t take but a minute or two.” Thomas watched as her fingers began dancing around the keyboard as she hummed to herself. “Well so far it looks as though everything is working exactly as intended. There does appear to be an update for it though. If you want I can update it real quick while I have it connected?” Looking up at Thomas as she asked, he noticed the mischievous glint had returned to her eyes.

“Sure I don’t mind if you do that.” Thomas wasn’t sure he should trust her but he knew his device well enough to check for anything extraneously installed later.

She just nodded and went back to looking at the screen. Thomas decided to keep his interactions with the girls to himself for now. He was worried that since Disco Riders had a hand in the VAR program they might decide to take over his machine. His guilt and his promise to Pinkie that he’d help them, wouldn't allow anyone else to touch his machine. 

Thomas’s thoughts were interrupted as Iris stood back up. “Here you go all done.” Unplugging the device and handing it to Thomas she looked pleased with her work. “I don’t have all the information on the update, but knowing her she’s added a few extra functions to it. So don’t be too surprised if something new pops up.”

“She? So you know the programmer personally?” Thomas asked.

“Of course I do. It’s my daughter. Lilacs made this one. I know she doesn’t look it but she’s quite the programmer. She does a lot of back end stuff for our site.” Iris practically beamed with pride as she talked about her daughter. “Well if there’s anything else you need from us don’t hesitate to contact us. I’m sure my father will be glad to hear from you.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind, and thanks for putting my mind somewhat at ease given the current state of events.” Waving back at Iris as he began to leave the store. She waved back and sat down at her desk and turned the TV on. The last thing Thomas heard as he stepped back outside into the blinding disco balls was her laughing.

***

    Thomas arrives home laden with bags from a nearby grocery store. Full with some extra water and canned foods just in case. He wasn’t expecting things to get bad but he wanted to be prepared anyway. Putting away the excess food he looks towards a clock, it read 2:30pm. “Those damn trains sure made killing time boring with their delays but I’ve only got about an hour to go before I can try to go back.” With the extra time Thomas made  himself an early dinner of macaroni, bacon, and cheese. Sitting down to watch the news for the time being. He was surprised to see how little news seems to be about the sky. “You’d think with the sun being covered in darkness and the moon not moving in the sky that someone would be constantly reporting about them. Or reporting the problems they’re causing. But no just normal news.”

Finishing with dinner and cleaning up the dishes Thomas heads for his entertainment room to check on the processing. Seeing it just about done with a minute and a half left on the timer Thomas gets ready by grabbing his glasses and remotes. He stands on the usual place and places the dark glasses on his face and waits for his vision to change. As the timer ends its countdown Thomas once again feels his vision get pulled. This time it's a forward motion instead of a backwards one like last time.

Looking around to get his bearing he find himself on a train. A rather colorful train with low benches. Turning around he finds what he hoped to see. The ponies he was supposed to be helping sitting in two groups on each side of the train. Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Rarity were on one side. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were on the other. Walking towards them, Pinkie was the first one to notice he was back. Waving sheepishly at her “Hey Pinkie, I’m back.”

Hopping off the bench she was sitting on and landing in from of him Pinkie look relieved to see him. “Where did you go Thomas?” Pinkie asked. “One moment you were there and the next it looked like you were squeezed into a balloon and popped.”

“Sorry Pinkie. It seems I was pulled back to where I came from. But I think I’ll be here for a while. Where exactly are we anyway?”

Standing up Twilight came and stood next to Pinkie. “We’re about to reach Tall Tale any minute actually. I wasn’t expecting to see you again, Thomas.” Twilight stated with an accusing hoof point. ”Pinkie was quite adamant that you would come back though. It seems she was right.”

“I’m really sorry about that but I think I get what’s letting me visit here for now so I should be here till we find the current element. Then I’m pretty sure I’ll be yanked back again.” Before Thomas could say anything else the train whistle blew.

“Now arriving in Tall Tale. Last stop every pony must disembark here!” Shouts a nearby conductor.

Smiling her happiest smile Pinkie bounces in place and shouts “Let's go find us an Element of Harmony!”
> Virtual Honesty Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Virtual Honesty Part 1


Stepping off the train the first thing Thomas noticed was the complete lack of any other passengers. The second thing he noticed was that Tall Tale seemed to be a much more industrialized town. There seemed to quite a few ten story buildings, but a lot of the town still seemed to be made of warehouses and workshops. The girls finished putting on their saddle bags, left the train and stepped up behind Thomas on the train platform.

“Hey girls?” Thomas speaks up as he looks back towards the group of mares. “How did you manage to convince the engineer and conductors to bring you here?”

Giggling madly Pinkie looks towards Thomas and says “She threw her weight around!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight chastises her. “I didn’t throw my weight around.” Looking towards Thomas. “I asked nicely, but when they refused I had to tell them that I was Princess Celestia’s personal student and that if I didn’t get to Tall Tale soon the sun might never come up again.”

“As I said she threw her weight around.” Pinkie said continuing to giggle, ignoring Twilight’s glare.

“Well I’m glad you girls managed to get here without too many issues.” Thomas smiled towards the group hoping they could see he was sincere. “So where do we go first?”

Stepping forward and pointing towards the center of town Applejack speaks up. “There’s an Inn around town square that the conductor swears by. Tall Tale really isn’t a touristy town, so they should have a room or two for us to use.”

With their initial destination set the group began to move on towards the center of town. Pinkie continues her happy pronking gait while the rest solemnly walk. Even Rainbow Dash the one who preferred to float about was walking. Thomas noticed as they got farther from the train station the more ponies he could see wandering about. They all had this spooked but determined look about them. Quite a few gave cursory glances towards the recently arrived group of mares, but none seemed all that shocked.

“Pinkie? Does anything seem odd to you about these ponies?” Thomas asks as he tries to keep pace with the bouncing ball of energy.

“Nope!” Pinkie states mid bounce slowly floating back down to the ground. “Why? Should there be something wrong with them? They look scared, but what pony isn’t scared when the sun hasn’t risen even once in two days time. Do you think they should be screaming in panic?”

“Yes!? I mean sure they’ve had a day to calm down about the sun for the moment, but how often does a ghostly bipedal creature walk into town?” Thomas asks. “Even if for some reason they think I’m a strange type of minotaur the fact I’m see through should cause some sort of reaction!”

The entire group stops at this and looks at Thomas. Each of them gaining a look of understanding that he was right. Before any of them could say anything Pinkie quickly bounced her way towards an oncoming unicorn stallion. Stunned and not sure what she could be thinking Thomas and the rest of the girls just stare slack jawed as Pinkie has a quick conversation with the stallion. Pinkie points excitedly towards the group and the stallion looks over. A quick shrug and what looked like an answer the stallion turns and continues on his way. Pinkie with a knowing smile on her face bounces back and stops in front of Thomas.

“It seems your only haunting us!” Sings Pinkie “Mr. Carver said he only saw five mares standing over here. He did add that the Mare with the hat might be interested in a new invention they just started making.”

“Why would Ah have any interest in some random invention?” Applejack asks as she looks towards the retreating stallion.

Pinkie shrugs. “He seemed to think it would be great for a farm pony like you.”

“How would he know Applejack’s a farmer?” Wonders Thomas aloud.

Rarity walks towards Applejack and points a hoof at her. “She does give off the aura of a farmer, darling. Just look at her, The well worn stetson on her head, her cutie mark, and those well toned muscles that show how hard she works.”

Blushing Applejack pulls her hat down a bit over her eyes and speaks up. “Ah think he gets the idea Rares.”

The girls begin to walk on and Thomas just stares at Applejack for a moment before catching up with the group. It didn’t take the group very long to find the inn that the train conductor had suggested. The inn itself looked like a two story log cabin. A Sign hung over the door that pictured a sleeping pony on a bed and another pony holding up a frothing mug. Looking towards the sign with a confused look on his face. “Is that sign the inn’s name or showing what they offer?”

Pinkie looks back at the sign and with a smile on her face she says “It’s a bit of both.”

Continuing to stare at the sign Thomas realizes too late that the girls have already gone inside and the door has closed behind them. “Crap!” Thomas mutters to himself as he tries to decide if he should pull the door open or not. “If I open that door I’m going to spook someone and I’m sure that will cause more problems than help.” Thomas looks down at his hands and remembers he still has the remotes. Though invisible to him they he could still feel them if he tried. “Duh I just need to see them and I can use this to teleport myself to their side. Now I just need to find a vantage point.” Moving to the right of the door Thomas tries to see inside the building through the large bay window. The view is blocked by a large curtain though. “Come on I just need a peek inside!” Thomas was about to give up looking for a break in this curtain and look for another way. When it was pulled back by the wide grinning visage of Pinkie Pie. “Thank you Pinkie.” Thomas states as he smiles back and quickly teleports behind her into the building.

Pinkie turns towards Thomas and giggles. “Silly Tomi Why didn’t you just come in the through the door?”

“Sorry Pinkie I didn’t want to scare anypony by opening a door when no one can see me” Thomas scratches the back of his head in an embarrassed manner as he explains himself.

“But you’re a ghost you could have just walked through it all spooky like!” As she says this she waves her fore hooves around in an imitation of a ghost.

Thomas Laughs at Pinkie’s antics as he tries to explain. “It doesn’t work that way Pinkie. My hands are almost solid they wouldn’t pass through the door. The rest of me would but I couldn’t do anything more then look into the room.”

The room they were in was large but cozy looking with a large fireplace roaring in the corner and magical orbs lighting the rest of the room. Other than the girls and Thomas there wasn’t anypony else in the room. Twilight and Rarity were standing near the bar looking around for the staff. Fluttershy had wandered over towards some paintings that looked like they might be of the local area. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were walking up to the second floor to search for staff.

Walking up to Twilight and Rarity with Pinkie in tow Thomas couldn’t help but wonder where the staff were. “Did any of you call out for anypony by chance?”

“A lady does not shout for service, Thomas.” Rarity chided.

Rolling his eyes a bit Thomas looked back at Pinkie. “Hey Pinkie got any bells on you?”

“Of course I do!” Pinkie reached into her mane quickly pulling out an assortment of brass bells. “I’ve got a small one,” this bell looked like it was made for a mouse. “A medium one,” This one was the perfect size to get someone’s attention but she kept going. “A large one,” Said large bell looked like something a town crier would wield. “And last an extra large one!” The last bell was as big as she was and Thomas had no clue where she had kept that one and truly didn’t want to find out.

“I think the medium one will work for our purposes Pinkie.” Thomas picked up the medium bell and passed it towards Rarity. “If you wouldn’t mind ringing this for a bit.” Pinkie quickly put away her extra bells. Thomas just shook his head at the absurdity.

“Of Course Darling” Rarity began to ring the bell. It let out a cheerful peal that seemed to be louder than it really had any right being.

There was a sudden sound of falling kitchenware from behind the bar. Rarity stopped ringing the bell as she was quite started by the noise. Soon an older earth Mare walked out from the back room. She had a dark blue coat and with purplish mane that was slowly fading to grey. Her cutie mark was a set of playing cards. She had a slightly surprised look on her face.

“My hearing must be going in my old age. When did you lot come in?” The mare asked.

Speaking a bit louder than she normally would Rarity spoke up. “We’ve only been here a few moments. Miss?”

“Oh pardon my manners. We don’t get many newcomers to town. I’m Gin Rummy, I’m the proprietress of The Sleeping Drunk Inn. So what can I do fer ya?”

Thomas just face palmed at hearing the name of the inn. Pinkie giggles at him, and Gin looks towards her wondering what’s so funny.

“Oh well we were hoping you’d have a room for the six of us?” Rarity reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a bag of bits.

“Six of you? I only see four.” Said Gin Rummy looking around the room.

“Oh yes dear, the other two are upstairs. They went looking for well, you Miss Rummy. They should be back down in a moment or two.” Rarity looked a bit sheepish.

“Ah no problem. Well I’ve got four empty rooms. You can all take the largest one which has two Celestia sized beds if you don’t mind sharing. Or you can do two to a room with the other three. It’s up to you.”

“How much for the rooms?” Rarity asks with a shrewd look in her eyes.

“I charge by the pony, not by room. We really don’t get enough ponies staying that I need to worry about rooms being full. Knowing that look in your eye like I do, as I see it in the mirror quite often. I’ll give you a fair deal since I like the the cut of your jib. It’s normally three bits a pony, but I’ll take fifteen bits for the lot of ya. And I’ll throw in dinner as well. How does that sound?” Gin Rummy smirked knowing she won the intended round of haggling with her first offer.

“Yay complimentary dinner!” Pinkie shouts while jumping into the air.

“Based on my companions joy, I guess we’ll be taking that offer Miss Rummy.” Rarity counts out and hands over fifteen bits to Gin Rummy.

“Just call me Gin, hun. Everypony else does.” Gin smiles as she takes the offered bits. “Have you decided which rooms you’ll be taking yet?”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash come back down after hearing Pinkies shout. “Ah see you girls found the owner” Applejack says as she tips her hat towards Gin Rummy.

“Yes we did darlings. We’re now trying to decide if we should share a large room or take three separate rooms.”

Applejack takes a quick look at Thomas. “Ah think we should take the big one. It will make planning our route easier.”

“Anypony have any issues with sharing a room together?” Rarity asks but is quickly met with every pony shaking their heads no. “Well then Gin I believe we will take the large room.”

Gin Rummy moved quickly to the other end of the bar. Looking for a moment underneath it she comes back with a set of keys in her mouth and passed them over to Rarity. “Here you go. One key goes to the room and the other to the closet. I have to keep them locked to keep the local varmints from nesting in them. I make dinner at six o’clock on the dot so if you want any make sure you’re here by then. If you need anything else just shout and I’ll be along shortly.”

“Thank you Gin. We’ll keep that in mind. Come on girls let’s go see our lodgings.” Rarity says heading for the stairs.

Reaching the top of the stairs they find their room at the end of the hall and begin to file in. Thomas being the last one to enter gasps at the size of the beds. “ I know Celestia is bigger than your average pony but does she really have a bed this size?” The room was large enough to support both beds but there wasn’t much excess space to leave anything just lying around.

Twilight starts to laugh at Thomas’s question. “Actually Thomas her bed is actually a bit bigger than these. She actually rolls around a lot when she sleeps.”

“That’s not something I would have expected at all!” Both Thomas and Rainbow Dash say at the same time.

“Jinx” Pinkie yells as she begins to giggle. Rainbow just glares daggers at Thomas.

“Hey what did I do?” Thomas asks looking at her.

Pinkie reaches over to punch Thomas in the arm and passes through him forgetting that he’s nearly incorporeal once again. “Hey no fair Tomi, you talked you have to take your punishment!”

“Sorry Pinkie where I’m from only the people who said the same thing can claim jinx. Plus how would I ever get released from that? I don’t think I can buy you anything.”

As Pinkie sits there thinking Rainbow flies over to the bed farthest from Thomas and sits down next to Fluttershy and Applejack. “Enough of that nonsense. Now that we’re here in Tall Tale how are we going to find the element?” Rainbows voice is still terse but she’s no longer glaring at Thomas.

Twilight and Rarity sit on the other bed patting the empty space for Pinkie to join them. Thomas decides to sit down between the feet of the two beds so he can see everypony. All the girls look over to Twilight waiting for her to say something.

“Well,” Twilight begins. “Nothing out right screams you can find the element here. But Maybe Thomas’s map will be able to show us its location since it did lead us here to begin with.”

“Oh right, the map.” Thomas reaches into his pants and pulls out his pocket pc and starts up Anymapwiki. The map currently shows all of Equestria so Thomas zooms in on Tall Tale. “The map still shows Applejack’s cutie mark above Tall Tale but when I zoom in closer the symbol turns transparent over the whole city.”

“Some help you are!” Rainbow grumbles at Thomas.

“Okay So the map knows it’s here but not its exact location. So we’re going to have to split up and comb the city. Maybe something will jump out at us and give us a lead.” says Twilight looking thoughtful. “We should probably fan out in teams of two. We can meet back here at dinner time and go over what we each found.”

“Me and Fluttershy can get around the outskirts of town pretty easily. Plus with her being able to understand the local varmints, as Gin put it, we might be able see if they’ve noticed anything odd.” States Rainbow proudly.

The look on Fluttershy’s face couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Part of her was happy she got to talk with the local animals with Rainbow, but the other half was concerned about exploring some place she’s never been before.

Before Fluttershy could reject the idea Rainbow Put her arm around her and said. “Don’t worry Flutters, you have nothing to fear with me by your side!” Rainbows chest puffed out in bravado and Fluttershy just sighed in acceptance.

“I’ll go with Applejack.” Stated Rarity “I’m kind of curious as to what that stallion pinkie talked to meant. And it never hurts to get in the good graces of a business owner in another town.”

Applejack rolled her eyes at Rarity. “You do know this isn’t a business transaction right Rares?”

“Oh Darling, just because we’re trying to save the world doesn’t mean we can’t do a bit of schmoozing. You never know when being well connected will help out.” Rarity just smiled knowingly at Applejack.

“That just leaves Pinkie, Thomas, and myself to wander around and maybe check in with the mayor.” Twilight looked towards Pinkie and Thomas to see if they had any problems with the decisions made.

With their plans set the girls started to leave the room. Twilight and Pinkie were the last to go. As Twilight was just about to walk out the door Pinkie started to vibrate.

Twilight hearing a strange noise stops and looks back at Pinkie. “Pinkie what’s wrong?” Twilight asked looking quite concerned.

Pinkies eyes began to spin and her mane exploded in confetti, and as quickly as it started it stopped. “wooo, I haven’t had a doozy like that happen in quite a while! Something odd is about to happen in this room.”

“What do you mean something odd is going to happen in this room and what in Celestia’s name just happened to you?” Twilight’s worried tone slowly turned into an exasperated one.

“It’s my Pinkie sense Twily, and it just reminded me about something!” Pinkie hopped up and down facing Thomas. “Ask Screwy maybe she can help us. She did last time you needed help.”

“That doesn’t answer my question Pinkie!” Twilight just sighed as Pinkie ignored her.

“Oh yeah maybe she can help us.” Thomas tapped the app again on his pocket pc. Not seeing a button to summon her Thomas’s eyebrows scrunched together. “I’m not sure exactly how I got her to show up last time. It seems like an accident as I didn’t push anything.”

“Hey Screwy!” Pinkie Chirped towards Thomas’s device.

The screen changed showing screwball sitting on her haunches with her fore hooves crossed with a rather ticked expression on her face. She quickly looked away in a huff.

“Did Screwy show up?” Pinkie’s smile never left her face even though Thomas’s face looked concerned.

Hearing this Screwball’s face looked forwards again looking even more mad than before. Before Thomas could react she reached towards him and pulled herself out of his pocket pc. She was about the size of his palm and about as solid looking as the ponies around him.

“What the!” Thomas yells as he accidentally drops his device. The pocket pc instantly vanishes leaving a floating Screwball in the air being held there by the propeller on her beanie.

Pinkie just Awed at the cute little pony just floating there. Twilight fell to her haunches in surprise as Screwball slowly spins in place to face Pinkie. Thomas doesn’t move he just stares in confusion.

Screwball still looking mad points at Pinkie. “My name is Screwball! Not Screwy!” Reaching into her beanie she pulls out a cream pie slightly bigger than herself and throws it at Pinkie.

Pinkie just opens her mouth and eats it whole. “Oh yummy pie is always tasty, even when they’re thrown!” Pinkie reaches out and grabs Screwball out of the air and pulls her into a hug. “Aww such a cutie! Can I keep her Thomas?”

“Noooo! Let me go you pink stomach with legs!” Screwball struggled trying to get out of Pinkies hug.

Getting some of his senses back Thomas straightens up. “Pinkie I think you should let her go.”

Reluctantly Pinkie did as Thomas suggested. Screwball spinning her tail like a second propeller made a dash behind Thomas’s shoulder. She hung off of his right shoulder and peered over him sticking her tongue out at Pinkie. Thomas could actually feel her weight on his shoulder. Reaching over his right side Thomas grabbed Screwball as lightly as he could and put her in his palm.

“W-w-w-w-what!?” Twilight stammered just before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passes out.

Screwball just smiled at Thomas from his palm. Pinkie starts giggling again and Thomas just stands there looking down at Screwball in confusion.
> Virtual Honesty Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Virtual Honest Part 2




Continuing her giggling Pinkie walks over to Twilight. In one smooth motion she moves Twilight from the floor to the nearby bed. Reaching into her mane Pinkie pulls out a chocolate cupcake with purple frosting, and begins to wave it slowly in front of Twilight's nose. “Oh Twili it’s time to wake up and get this yummy cupcake!”

Twilight’s eyes began to flutter in response to Pinkie’s cupcake and a gentle prodding of her side. Her eyes snapped open and focused on the cupcake just a few inches from her face and bolted up right in surprised. “Ooooo what happened and where did that cupcake come from?”

Not wanting Twilight to think too much Pinkie shoves the cupcake into Twilight’s mouth. “Silly Twili I always carry a few extra cupcakes on me at all times.” Pointing over at Thomas she continues. “ As for what happened you fainted when the tiny pony appeared.”

Following Pinkie’s hoof Twilight looks over at Thomas and notices the small magenta pony in his hand waving back at her. Swallowing the cupcake Twilight begins to stammer again. “W-what, h-how, w-where?”

Thomas continues to stare at Screwball watching her wave happily towards Twilight. “I wish I knew Twilight. One minute she’s sitting on the screen of my pocket pc and the next she’s having  an argument with Pinkie.”

Taking a moment to spin her beanie Screwball begins to float off Thomas’s palm and lands on his shoulder. “Don’t you remember the update? Mo… I mean Miss Deputes said there might be some new features that she wasn’t aware of.” Standing on her hind hooves and throwing her fore hooves up into the air she causes a shower of confetti to fall around her. “Tada! I’m the new feature!”

“I think I’m even more confused now about what’s going on here then I was to begin with.” Thomas uttered in disbelief. 

Before Thomas could think of anything else to say Twilight Spoke up. “Thomas what kind of update is she talking about?”

Looking from Screwball to Twilight, Thomas thinks for a moment trying to think up a way to explain it. “The map we’ve been using to get here wasn’t originally part of my pocket pc. Someone like me made it.” Screwball began to giggle on his shoulder at this statement. Thomas eyed Screwball curiously at her reaction. “Just because it worked doesn’t mean it’s perfect. There could be errors in it or it might not be able to do everything the creator wanted it to do. So they send out updates to add to it to make it better. Speaking of my pocket pc where did it go? I dropped it when you popped out Screwball.”

Putting a fore hoof to her chest proudly she spoke up. “Don’t you worry I have it, or I should say I am it.” To prove what she was saying was true she waved her fore hoof in front of her. In between Thomas and the girls a map of the surround area appeared. Centered were three markers a grey one for him and a pink and purple one for the girls. Moving away from them were four other marks matching the other’s colors. “See while you’re here I have access to everything you need.”

“Ooh pretty!” Pinkie said.

“Fascinating!” Twilight spoke. “But we’ll have to worry about this more later we really need to get moving. If we’re going to find any info on the Element of Harmony since it looks like Screwball here doesn’t know it’s location.”

“Sorry.” Screwball shrugs. “I know it’s here but I don’t know it’s exact location.”

Pinkie grin gets wider again while looking at Screwball “Oh oh oh, can I hide her in my mane?”

“Why would you need to hide her in your mane?” Thomas asks Pinkie as Screwball looks on horrified at the prospect.

“Well She’s not ghostly like you she might cause ponies to freak out at the mini pony flying around without wings or magic?”

“That won’t be necessary. Just like Thomas, I can only be seen or heard by those I want to see or hear me.”

“Aww that’s too bad I would have liked a tiny pony riding in me mane.” Pinkie bemoaned.

“You mean I can make other see or hear me if I want them too?” Thomas asked quite surprised at this revelation.

“Of course. There may be other things you can do as well but I can only see that one at the moment.” Screwball jumped onto Thomas’s head and began to settle herself into a comfortable position. Pointing towards the the door she shouted. “Onward to adventure!”

“Hey that’s my line!” Pinkie smirked at Screwball. “Onward to funventure!” With that last statement she began to bounce for the door.

Twilight just sighed and hoof palmed herself but followed after Pinkie. Thomas laughing to himself soon followed behind Twilight  as they made their way down towards the street exit.


***

Finding town hall turned out to be a bit harder than they expected. Except for the tall tenement style buildings most had the same looks as any other. Screwball’s map wasn’t that helpful either as nothing was labeled except for the places Thomas had been or seen. Also surprising was the lack of ponies wandering around. It seemed like a ghost town but a constant thrum of nearby machines proved otherwise.

“Hey girls should we maybe walk into one of these workshops and ask somepony where we can find town hall? Instead of having to walk all the way back to the inn just to ask Gin.” Thomas questioned them as they all came to a halt.

Twilight turned towards Thomas and was about to say something when Pinkie’s eyes began to sparkle. “Good idea Tomi!” With that said she blitzed off for the nearest workshop.

Twilight and Thomas just stared at where Pinkie had been. “Um, should we go after her Twilight?”

“I think we can wait here for her.” Twilight said sitting down. "Either she manages to get the info we need or they toss her out and we can try some other place together."

Thomas nods in agreement “Oh hey Twilight, it’s bit late to ask this but what happened with Spike? I’d have figured he’d be here with you since he’s your assistant?”

Twilight’s eyes lowered a bit at this. ”I left him in Ponyville with the owners of Sugarcube Corner at Pinkie’s assurance that Mister and Missus Cake would look after him till I came back. He’s too young for this I didn’t want the possibility of him getting hurt.”

“I hadn’t realized he’s that young. I thought he was just a small dragon.”

“No he’s still technically a baby dragon. Sure he can be pretty mature for his age but he has his moment of foalishness.” Twilight signed remembering some of the silly things he’d get himself into if not watched. “If somepony doesn’t pay attention to him some what he’d gorge himself on ice cream until he’s sick.”

Thomas laughs a bit as he replies. “Yeah I think any kid will do that if they think they can get away with it.”

“What do goats have to do with it?” Twilight asks confused.

“Oh sorry that’s what we call our foals in my world.” Thomas says then quickly adds, “and were not related to goats we just have the same name for our young.”

Twilight looks thoughtful at this information but keeps quiet. Choosing now as a good time to speak Screwball floats off of Thomas’s head and moves in front of Twilight. “I can show you where Spike is right now if you want Twilight?”

“Really? How would you do that?” Twilight asks with a look on her face that screams tell me your secrets.

“Since Thomas see’s him as important I can put a marker on the map to show his current location.” As she explains this she brings up the map and zooms it on Ponyville. “Let’s see. Ah there he is.” The map zooms in again and shows a purple and green marker in a building near the center of Ponyville.

“Where are Mister and Missus Cake?” Twilight asks worriedly.

“I’m sure they're there, but Thomas hasn’t seen enough of them to acknowledge them as important or just doesn’t remember what they look like.” Screwball points accusingly at Thomas as she explains this as though it’s his fault.

Thomas just stares at Screwball for throwing him under a bus for something he doesn’t think he has any control over. An idea pops into his head as he moves his head towards the map. “Wait, what about Celestia? I know she’s important. Can you find her? Maybe we can get her help in this as well?”

Screwball floats onto the map and switches her hat for a detective's one and pulls out a magnifying glass. “I can try.” With that she begins to wander the map looking at it. After about a minute she stop and looks up at Thomas. “Sorry I know she’s here in Equestria, but like the Elements I can’t pinpoint her location. I did get a hit for Nightmare Moon though. She’s currently in Canterlot.” The map zoomed back in on Canterlot castle showing a blackish blue marker in its center.

“At least we get to keep an eye on the big meanie.” Pinkie pops up looking at the map in wonder. The sudden appearance of the pink pony causes everyone else to yelp in surprise.

“When did you get here!?” Twilight nearly shouts as she tries to calm down from the near heart attack her friend gave her.

“I’ve been here for a few minutes, but you two were too busy watching Screwy wander around the glowy map.”

Screwball just glares at Pinkie and in a huff and removes the map. A moment later she's back on top of Thomas’s head trying to stare a hole though Pinkie.

“Screwball you really need to let that go. She just likes giving ponies nicknames it’s not malicious.” Thomas looks up at the tiny pony on his head and gently pokes her. “I’m sure she’ll come around at some point Pinkie.”

Pinkie looks a bit sad at this but turns towards Twilight to go over what she found out. “So as soon as I entered I was greeted by the fore pony of this furniture making workshop. Thought I didn’t see anypony actually making any furniture. Just parts of magical torches, but I guess a torch could be considered furniture in some capacity…”

As Pinkie’s tangent continued onto other types of furniture Twilight placed a hoof on her muzzle to stop her from talking. “Focus Pinkie what did you learn from the fore pony?”

“Oh right. Well at first I didn’t learn too much actually. He kept trying to sell me a job.”

This time Thomas stopped her. “How does somepony sell you a job?”

Twilight glared at Thomas for making Pinkie answer the odd question but Pinkie ignored Twilight’s look and continued. “Well he wanted me to buy a bunch of these torches off of them and then sell them. I’d get to keep some of the bits and I’d send the rest back to them to buy more torches.”

“That does sound like trying to sell a job. How weird.” Says Thomas as he motions for Pinkie to continue.

“After a few attempts I got him to understand that I wasn’t interested in the job. At understanding this he almost threw me out, but I did manage to get him to tell me where to find the mayor”s office.”

“Really that’s great Pinkie where is it?” Twilight exclaimed.

“Were actually pretty close it’s just a few blocks over in a warehouse.” Pinkie pointed off in the direction they needed to go and started to move off towards their destination.

Pinkie was right it wasn’t that far from where they had been. The outside looked nearly identical to every other warehouse in the general area. They made their way inside finding rows upon rows of filing cabinets. Thomas walks between a random row of cabinets and starts looking at the labels. Each label is a set of years. Though he didn't understand the significance of said years. Soon noticing the girls were about to leave him behind again Thomas rushes to catch up. Upon doing so he notices Twilight's left eye is twitching and she’s frowning.

“What’s wrong Twilight?” Thomas asks in a worried tone.

Through gritted teeth Twilight hisses out. “This place is just really badly organized. I don’t even need to look into the individual drawers to know it would be nearly impossible to find anything in here.”

“You can organize them after you save the world.” Thomas chided her while smiling.

She Huffed at this. “I know. I can still be annoyed though.”

They soon found what they were looking for a door with a frosted glass window with the word for mayor written in the center. Thomas was a bit surprised he knew this as he hadn’t seemed to be able to read any words before now. “Hmm that’s weird.”

“Did you say something Tomi?” Pinkie asked.

“Nothing to worry about Pinkie just noticing I can read things I couldn’t before.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie sings.

Twilight reaches up and knocks on the door hoping the mayor was inside. A quick shuffling of papers is heard inside followed by the sound of a chair falling over. “W-w-w-who i-i-is i-i-it?” a shaky stallion’s voice yelps though the door.

“Hello? Mister Mayor, may we please come in?” Twilight asks in a calming as possible voice.

The sound of things being moved can once again be heard in the room. After a few moments the sound stops and the door opens. “Come, Come right in. S-sorry for the yelling, but I was afraid you were the rep-representatives of the different workshops around the city.” The stallion that had opened the door was a fairly young in appearance. He had a tan coat, an olive green mane, and the look of someone under a lot of stress.  “Have a seat.” He said pointing to the two chairs in front of his desk.

“Thank you.” Twilight and Pinkie sat down in the  offered chairs. “This is Pinkie Pie, and I’m Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight says as she points to Pinkie and herself. “Why did you think we might be these representatives Mister Mayor?” Twilight asked.

“The name’s Number Cruncher, but you can just call me Number. I may legally be Mayor of Tall Tale, but this job was forced on me. I’m one of the few ponies in the entire city with a cutie mark for something other than hard work. Most seem to get them for woodworking or construction, But I got mine because I’m quick with numbers and that’s about it. So I’m more a figurehead slash accountant then a working mayor. The representatives for the all of the workshops are the ones who decide how the city actually runs.” Number let out an exasperated sigh as he finished his speech.

“That seems kind mean.” Pinkie looked thoughtfully towards Number Cruncher wondering what she could do about his predicament. In a flash she reached into her mane and pulled out a small box wrapped with a bow. “Here, I believe you will enjoy these!” Pinkie just smiled happily as she handed Number the box.

Placing the box on the desk and quickly opening it, Number found it full of a half dozen lemon squares with random math problems on them in olive green icing. “H-how did you know lemon squares are my favorite?”

“Oh I just had a hunch.” Pinkie giggled.

Thomas walked next to the mayor to get a look into the box. Seeing the writing on the little pastries he smacked himself and gives the pink pony a look of utter disbelief. “I will never understand how you do these things Pinkie.”

Pinkie looks towards Thomas just a bit and gives him a sly wink. Twilight just shakes her head a bit. “Sorry to interrupt, but we came here hoping to get some information.”

Number had just finished scarfing down his second lemon square. “Oh right sorry, What can I help you with?”

“We were wondering if you had gotten any reports of an object landing in or around the town that came streaking out of the sky sometime yesterday?” Twilight’s eyes glittered in hope that the mayor would have heard something.

“Let me think. I do remember seeing something come down in the forest to the south west of us. It was the same direction these two new unicorns came from in a strange vehicle.”

“Did you happen to notice if they were carrying a stone orb?”

“Nope sorry. Didn’t really get to see to much of what they were carrying. They just rode in on their machine and started to sing. I’m slightly grateful for that song as it actually managed to calm everypony down. I take it back I did see one thing they brought with them.” Number opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a torch with quartz stone for the light source.

“Hey that’s the kind of torch that the rude fore pony I met wanted me to buy and sell!” Pinkie hopped up and down in her chair in recognition of the torch.

“They somehow managed to convince the entire group of representatives to switch their productions from what they originally made to these things.” Number puts the torch on the desk and slides it towards Twilight. “This is just a show model so it doesn’t actually work but they claimed they would keep plants growing in the dark till Princess Celestia manages to get the sun up again.”

“Is that even possible, I know earth ponies can speed up the grows of plants with their innate magic, but they still need sunlight for it work.” Twilight taps her hoof against her chin in thought. “Do you know where we could find them I’d be interested in figuring out how they’ve managed to do this?”

“Sorry Miss Sparkle, But I don’t actually know where they’re currently hold up. After convincing the representatives they moved on to another portion of the city and I haven’t seen them since.”

Screwball started to beep on top of Thomas’s head causing both Twilight and Pinkie to look at him funny. She put her hoof to her mouth to stop herself and then spoke up when the beeping stopped. “That was a reminder of the time. You might want to head back to the inn soon.”

Looking up at his head mounted passenger. “Thanks Screwball.”

Pinkie raises her hoof. “Ya Thanks Sc..”

Twilight’s hoof quickly flew into Pinkie’s mouth to stop her from saying any more. “Yes, thank you Number, but we have to be going we’re supposed to me up with some friends at the inn to see if they found anything regarding the object were looking for.”

“No problem. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. And thanks again Miss Pie for the lemon squares they taste just like the ones my mother would make me as a foal.”

“You’re welcome. If you ever find yourself in Ponyville I’ll gladly throw you a welcome party with the biggest bestest lemon square you’ve ever had!” Pinkie twirled around in her chair tossing confetti everywhere.

“Sorry for the mess Number. Pinkie’s just very excitable.”

“What mess Twilight?” Pinkie asks with a large grin on her face.

“What do you mean what mess, the con-fet-ti…” Twilight looks around the room it was exactly how it was before Pinkie threw confetti everywhere. “Never mind let’s just get going.”

Thomas not able to control himself bursts out in laughter and smacks the nearby wall causing a loud thump.

“W-w-what in Celestia’s name was that?” Number cried out in fear.

“I’m sure it was just a mouse.” Stated Twilight while looking cross in Thomas’s direction.

“Ye-Yes, just a mouse. Why didn’t I think of that?” Number Crunch visibly calmed down. “I think once the sun’s back in the sky, I’ll take your suggestion Miss Pie and come see Ponyville.”

Holding the door open for Twilight and Thomas, Pinkie waves back at Number. “I’ll keep my eye out for you. Make sure you come hungry!”

They quickly make their way outside. It still seemed pretty devoid of wandering ponies even with the time nearing evening. Twilight stops and looks towards Thomas with a slightly annoyed look on her face. “Was laughing like that really necessary Thomas? You hitting that wall could have given that poor stallion a heart attack. He already seemed pretty on edge.”

Looking a bit ashamed Thomas scratches the back of his head. “Sorry Twilight, But I was watching her when she threw that confetti. I still don’t know where it went, so I couldn’t help myself. It was just too funny and you walked right into that set up like you had the gag planned.”

Pinkie and even Screwball burst into laughter at the thought of Twilight being in on the gag. Twilight just huffed and started to walk again. “Come on let’s get back to the inn. We don’t want to be late for dinner.”

***

Walking into the inn Thomas saw that they were the last group to arrive. The rest had already occupied a booth in the corner. Walking towards the group Rarity was the first to notice their arrival. “Yoo hoo Dahlings, over here. You’re just in time Gin is just about finished. While she refused to tell me what exactly she would be serving it smells divine.” Everypony at the table nodded and murmured their agreement.

“You’re right it does smell really good in here.” Said Twilight as she climbs into the booth next to Rarity.

Pinkie takes the opposite seat and sits next to Applejack. “Yum, It smells just like something my Granny Pie used to make, though I can’t remember what she called it.”

As the girls continued to discuss what the smells could turn out to be Thomas moves off to the side to make sure he was out of Gin’s way when she showed up. He didn’t have to wait long as she came out carrying a large tray on her her back with what looked like small pot pies.

“I’m glad you girls showed up. I was hoping these wouldn’t go to waste.” Gin says as she being to pass out the  dishes around the booth. “I hope you’re all hungry. It has been a while since I made enough Spinach Flan for more than just myself.”

Licking her lips in hunger “This smells and looks exactly like something my Granny Pie used to make for me as a filly. I can’t wait to dig in.”

Gin just laughs. “I’m glad to find out somepony else knows how to make this. Well I will leave you girls too it. When your done just leave the dishes on the counter and I’ll get to them later. If you need anything further just call out and I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

While the girls quickly dug into their food, Thomas decided to introduce the rest of the table to Screwball since the rest hadn’t seemed to notice the tiny pony laying on his head. He reached up and pulled her from her perch and gently set her on the table. “Girls I’d like you to meet Screwball.”

Being sat down between Twilight and Pinkie, Screwball scooted a bit closer to Twilight. Waving and smiling at the group she spoke up “Hello everypony, I’m Screwball.”

Their reactions were mixed but not quite what Thomas had expected them to be. Rarity and Fluttershy actually looked horrified, Rainbow’s eyes showed interest and curiosity, and Applejack had the weirdest reaction. She actually looked mad. Looking up at Thomas with gritted teeth she spoke up. “Sugar cube, What In Tartarus have you done?”

“Done? I haven’t done anything.” Thomas started to explain where Screwball came from and had her show off the map momentarily. Finishing up he asks. “What exactly did you think I had done?”

Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy all looked a bit sheepish and Rainbow just continued to stare at the small pony. “ Ah think Ah speak for the most of us when I say we thought you captured and shrunk a pony to do your dirty work.”

Thomas just groaned and Screwball began to laugh so hard she rolled off of the table. Fluttershy gasped but quickly let out a sigh of relief as Screwball floated back up into view via her propeller beanie. “That was great! I didn’t think I could laugh that hard. I think I will enjoy this trip.” Screwball continued to laugh as she made he way back to her perch on Thomas’s head.

“If she’s not a living thing like you claim, how does she know how to feel anything?” Rarity spoke up asking a question even Twilight hadn’t thought about. Much to said ponies chagrin.

“I wish I could tell you. She’s capable of things most programs I know of are completely incapable of. My being here shouldn’t be possible either so I’ve decided to just accept it and when I get back to my world I’ll see if I can get any answers.”

Having just finished her meal Twilight speaks up. “Now that the introductions are out of the way. I think we should go over what we learned if anything. While it took us longer than I would have liked, Pinkie and I did manage to find the mayor’s office. Number Cruncher told us about seeing an object flying into the forest to the south west. Shortly afterward two unicorns  showed up in town coming from the same direction.” Fluttershy squeaked at this information but was ignored as Twilight continued. “It seems these two managed to calm the town down with a song, but also convinced the entire town to change what they were producing. It seems kind odd, but I’m not completely convinced the events are connected.” Fluttershy once again squeaked.

“Twilight I think Fluttershy has something she wants to say.” Thomas said smiling at the shy pegasus.

"Oh um yes I do, if you don’t mind that is?” Fluttershy tried to squeeze into a ball as she said this not really wanting the attention she was suddenly getting.

“Go right ahead Flutters were all ears!” Pinkie says moving her ears back and forth bring a small smile to the shy ponies face.

“W-well as Dashie,” Rainbow’s chest puffed out proudly at this. “and I were wandering around the edge of the forest we ran into a few rather irate animals. They all seemed to have the same story. First their upset that the sun hasn’t come up yet. I did manage to explain why and that we’re trying to fix that. Their second problem seems to be the torches that are popping up everywhere and the ponies that brought them into the town.” Fluttershy looked a bit apprehensive about continuing but Rainbow tried to encourage her. “I asked them why they were upset at these ponies and they claimed their torches are messing with their sleep cycles just as bad as the lack of sun is. Then I asked them how they knew who brought the torches and they told us to go a bit deeper into the forest and look for the king.”

Hating to interrupt her Thomas still had to ask. “The forest animals have a king?”

Fluttershy was surprised at the question but smiled as she answered. “Not so much a ruler like our Princess Celestia. Their king is just the oldest most respected animal in the area. In this case it was a large great horned owl.”

Rainbow pipes up at this moment. “Yeah it was big. If Fluttershy hadn’t been there I think he would have tried to peck out my eyes. He wasn’t very happy to see us.”

Fluttershy continues. “Dash is right he wasn’t to pleased to see us but I managed to calm him down with the same info I gave the other animals. Then we asked him about the torches. He claimed he came across a campsite of two ponies with an odd cart. They were awoken when the sky lit up with a glowing orb that slowly floated down to them. When they grabbed it in their magic their eyes widened and there was a flurry of movement as the two started to build a set of torches. He didn’t understand exactly what the torches were but the light didn’t feel right. He flew deeper into the forest as the ponies packed up and headed for the town.”

“Interesting.” Twilight said. “Well that certainly confirms the that those two are who we should be looking for. Good job Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash. Now we just need to find them and figure out what they’re doing.”

Rarity’s horn lit up and a rummaging sound could be heard from under the booth. Floating from under the table in Rarity’s aura came four of the previously mentioned torches. “Well Darlings Applejack and I managed to find out some of what they’re doing.”

Applejack tipped her hat a bit and spoke up. “Yeah, Rares and Ah managed to track down that feller that Pinkie had talked with. Wouldn’t tell us much till we bought a few of these blasted things off him.”

“Yes he was rather adamant that for us to do any business we’d have to do a bit of quid pro quo.” Pinkie and Rainbow began to giggle at this causing Rarity to blush realizing where their minds had just gone. Now flustered Rarity spoke up in a slightly angry voice. “You both know that I meant we had to buy these torches!”

This cause Rainbow and Pinkie to laugh even harder. Even Applejack wasn’t immune to their infectious laughter as she pulled her hat down over her face to hide the giggling.

“We know Rarity we're just messing with you.” Rainbow said as she got her laughing under control.

Rarity huffed, unamused at her friends antics but continued the story. “He told us that each of these torches is enchanted to help plants continue to grow in the dark. It’s supposed to simulate sunlight.”

“That shouldn't be possible!” Twilight nearly yelled “mage light doesn’t have the same signature as sunlight. Can I look one over Rarity?”

“Of course darling. Do what you need to.” Rarity said passing one over to Twilight. “It seems they intend to start selling these to other towns soon through a recruiting drive. Farming communities seem to be top priority as they have the most to lose right now. He even suggest I sell these for a modest profit and then send him the initial cost that we just paid and he’d send us more.”

“Hey!” Pinkie shouted. “That’s exactly what the rude fore pony I talked to wanted me to do as well.”

“Um, Well, yes it seems all the workshops in town have the same sorts of set up. Some put the torches together with the materials they purchase from other workshops. Some of those make the wooden bases while a few select others enchant the gems. It also seems that the enchanters only know half the spells that go into these as our mysterious pair of unicorns have a machine that carves and does the other half the enchantments first. Which they sell to the main group of enchanters for a decent some. He even dared to call them the saviors of ponykind.”

“Your forgetting the best part there Rares.” Applejack smiled as Rarity began to frown. “Before we left Rares here used her feminine wiles to get him to tell us where these so call saviors were hold up with their machine.”

“I know there had been some quid pro quo going on.” Giggles Pinkie causing Rainbow and Applejack to burst out in laughter again at Rarity’s expense.

Huffing again Rarity continued. “He didn’t so much as give me an address but directions on how to get there from the inn.”

“Got you covered there Rarity!” Thomas said in an excited tone. “Hey Screwball can you please put the map on the table so she can trace out where we need to go.”

Screwball began to spin her propeller and flew down to the table and saluted Thomas. With a Wave of her fore hoof a map of Tall Tale appeared glowing across the table. Centering it on the in she spoke up. “Just touch the map with where you want to go and it will draw a line with the directions.”

“Oh this is just perfect dear. Thank you.” Rarity quickly began to draw the directions on the map leading them to a small warehouse on the outskirts of the town. “There we go. It seems they didn’t stray too far from where they came into town.”

“Something with this set up sounds really fishy to me sugar cubes.” Applejack said looking thoughtful. “Rarity how much did that varmint charge you for those things again?”

“I believe he charged me forty bits for all of them. Why?”

“Ah just remember that he seemed a bit forceful in wanting you to sell those on for him.”

Thomas’s eyes widened in realization. “I see what you’re getting at Applejack. It sounds like a pyramid scheme.”

“Uh what Thomas?” Asks Applejack.

“A pyramid scheme. Where I come from it’s a pretty frowned upon method of making money as they tend to break the law. In essence those at the top make the most money by promising a way to get rich quick by recruiting other to sell what they offer.”

"So these two lousy polecats are raking in the bits while the citizens of Tall Tale do all the work.” said Applejack now ticked off once again.

“Ah ha!” Twilight yells in excitement. “That’s what they’ve done.”

"What happened, Twilight?" Thomas asks as he looks at the now seething unicorn.

"This,” she waves the torch around. “is just an generic magical torch. There is no way for this thing to help plants grow. The only thing that separates this from any other magical torch is they somehow embedded a spell into it that causes the viewer to believe the torch can do what the holder says it can.”

A large grin settled onto Pinkie’s face as she picked up a torch from the table. “Hey Dashie, this torch will help you become a Wonderbolt. I’ll sell it to you for a bit.”

“Really!” Rainbow shrieks. She pulls out of bit from her saddlebags and tosses it to Pinkie.

Pinkie hands the torch over to Rainbow. “I’d say that works pretty well Twili. A bit too well if you ask me." 

“You’re right Pinkie.” Twilight’s horn began to glow. A moment later the strain that was on her face was released as her spell covered the table. “That should remove that spell from these torches but I don’t think I can cast that over an entire town.”

Rainbow stopped nuzzling the torch against her face and sat up in confusion. “Why the buck am I nuzzling this thing?”

“Silly Dashie. It’s because you thought it would get you into the Wonderbolts.” Pinkie happily replied.

Rainbow just sat there stunned not quite sure what happened or why but she decided to not question it and tossed the torch onto the table.

“Twilight Sparkle, may I borrow one of those dispelled torches?” Screwball asked looking hopeful.

“Uh sure Screwball.” Twilight picks one up and puts it in front of Screwball. “What exactly are you going to do with it.”

“Analyze it.” She said happily. Screwball waved the map away and walked up to the torch and started licking it. Twilight just looked at her dumbfounded, which caused the others to stare at Screwball as well. Picking up the torch like it weighed nothing she tossed it into the air. In one quick motion she jumped after the torch and swallowed it whole. The girls reactions ran the gamut of disgust to amusement.

Even Thomas was shocked to see this. “Screwball what did you just do?”

Screwball didn’t answer right away as her eyes began to glow different colors as lines of computer code scrolled down them. This soon stopped as she landed on the table and burped. The torch was lightly ejected from Screwball’s mouth and lands in the middle of the table spinning to a stop. “I told you I was going to analyze it.” She smiled at all the shocked faces around the table. “I can now make these if they're needed.” Screwball pulled off her beanie and reached inside pulling out a full size torch and tossed it on the table.

Twilight picked it up examining it and even turning it on. To say she was stunned would be an understatement as she began to mutter to herself. “How? How? How?”

Moving her head down on par with Screwball’s, Pinkie asked a simple question with a big smile on her face. “You're not turning into a deus ex machina, are you Screwball?”

Screwball flies away from Pinkie’s face at high speed and yells in anger. “How dare you! You pink menace! I am not you! I have rules! Just because you don’t know them or follow them doesn’t make me a deus ex machina!”

The yelling pulled Twilight from her trance. “What happened?” She looked between everypony at the table and Thomas.

“It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie, Twilight. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Said Rainbow waving Twilight’s question off.

“Okay? Well I think we should go back up stairs and get an early night. That way we can wake up early and deal with these mystery unicorns.” Twilight said looking a bit sleepy.

Pinkie quickly cleaned up the dishes from the table, and started heading back to the kitchen. Rarity tried to stop her by calling out to her. “Pinkie, dear you know Gin just said to leave the bowls on the bar?”

“Oh I know.” Pinkie sang “But after such a great meal I want to do something nice for her so I’m going to wash these and leave her a note. I’ll meet you girls up stairs in a minute.” She quickly vanished through the door leaving the rest to head upstairs.

As the girls got ready for bed Thomas became a bit nervous.  “Um girls I don’t want to be a problem, but I don’t feel tired. I'm not sure I can sleep normally while I’m here.” He looked around seeing nothing but confused faces. “I don’t really want to just stay here watching you sleep all night. It would be kinda creepy.”

Rarity was the first to get what Thomas was saying. “Oh I see you’re right that would be a problem. We could let you out the door and you could keep watch for the night.”

“I’m sorry Rarity but guard duty is probably the most mind numbing thing I could ever think of doing. I was actually thinking you could leave the curtains open just a bit for me to come and go through it. Since sleep isn’t exactly something I can do right now I might as well make myself useful and go scout out our mysterious unicorns.”

“That sounds like a great idea!” Pinkie said as she walked in through the door.

“Are you really sure that’s a good idea Pinks? What if he tries to stab us in the back.” Rainbow asked accusingly pointing a hoof at Thomas.

“Oh Dashie, he’s had plenty of opportunities to betray us and hasn’t yet. If Twilight was still awake she’d agree with me." Everypony's head looked towards the now snoozing pony. "Thomas is trying to help us. Right Thomas?”

“I have no reason to betray any of you. While I’m here I’ll do everything I can to help correct what I messed up.” Thomas said all this standing ramrod straight with his right hand over his heart.

“Fine.” Rainbow huffed and laid down.

Pinkie walked over to the Curtain and pulled it aside just enough to see the street below. “There that should be enough for you to see the roof of the room when you come back. Good luck.”

“Thanks Pinkie.” With that Thomas unconsciously reached for the button on the remote that should have been in his left hand pushed it. In an instant he was outside. Turning he looked up to see a smiling and waving Pinkie Pie. Waving back Thomas began to walk onward towards the warehouse. “Hey Screwball, you there?

Feeling her move on his head a bit she replied. “Yep I go where you go.”

“Good let’s go find out what we’re up against!”
> Virtual Honesty Part 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Virtual Honest Part 3


Having finally reached their destination, Thomas stands in front of a large red brick warehouse. The building’s design was fairly simple. Standing two stories tall with a large set of swing doors on the front locked by a couple of large padlocks. The second floor was ringed with windows, but they appeared to be blocked. By what neither Thomas nor Screwball could tell from the outside. Taking a few minutes to walk around the outside of the building, all Thomas found was a second smaller door, possibly leading to an office. Trying the handle Thomas wasn’t surprised at all to find it locked. 

Thomas Picks Screwball off the top of his head and places her on his palm. “Okay we’re here now so how do we get in? This door is locked, the ones out front are padlocked, and those windows up there are blocked. To be honest with you even had they been opened I really wouldn’t have wanted to fall from a second story.”

Smirking up at Thomas, Screwball pointed at the wall. “You could just do the obvious thing.”

“And that is?” Thomas asked staring at the blank wall she pointed at.

“Duh! Walk through the wall.” As she said this her propeller starts up and she begins floating towards the wall. “See it’s quite easy!” Screwball passed through the wall as is if it wasn’t even there and comes back just as easily.

“I hate to break this to you but I can’t do that. While most of me is intangible, my hands are not.” Thomas places his hands on the wall and pushes to prove his point. “See they don’t budge.”

Scratching her chin with her hoof Screwball looks at Thomas’s hands while humming to herself. “Hmm. That looks like something we’ll have to fix later. Oh well we can work around that for now.” Scrutinizing Thomas her eyes open wide and a large grin grows on her face. “Put your hands in your pockets!”

“What? How?" Thomas stares back and forth between his hands and Screwball. "Why would that work?”

“It’s simple your pants can pass through things right?”

“As far as I can tell yes.” Thomas pokes his right leg through the wall and back to check. “Yep they can pass through no problem.

“Then putting you hands in your pockets should hide them long enough for you to make it through.”

“That makes no sense to me, but what’s the worst that can happen.” Shoving his hands in his pockets and closing his eyes. “Here goes nothing.” Taking a couple of blind steps forward he phases through the wall.

Cheering loudly, “See I told you that would work!” Screwball floats in front of Thomas as he opens his eyes.

“Cartoon logic once again seems to win the day. I really need to stop questioning things like this.” Thomas says as he  blinks his eyes a few times as they adjust to the brighter lights of the inside of the warehouse. All around him are large crates of similar size with no visible markings. “I hope this is the right place?” Reaching out for the nearest crate Thomas tries futilely to open it.

Screwball just shrugs her shoulders as she floats ahead of him. “The only thing we can do is explore and hope we find something.”

Before Thomas could make a snarky reply a peal of laughter rings out from across the other side of the warehouse. “Well looks like we know which way we should go now!” Thomas smirks as Screwball just rolls her eyes. Putting his hands back into his pockets the duo moves towards the laughter passing through several crates.

As they step out into the open they quickly find the source of the laughter. A pair of yellow unicorns with red and white manes. The two were sitting on a couch resting on the oddest cart Thomas had ever seen. It looked like a cross between a train and horse drawn cart from the wild west era. The laughter finally subsides when the one on the right without a mustache begins to speak.  “Well brother of mine I think we should be able to move on tomorrow, well when night should have been.”

“Oh I agree brother!” Spoke the mustachioed counterpart. “I think we’ve managed to sell enough of our,” he starts to giggle “grow lights to everypony in this town.”

As the two unicorns start laughing again Thomas turns to Screwball. “Hey Screwball, do you happen to know who these two are? They feel kinda antagonistic, like someponies the girls might have run into on their own at some point.”

Placing her hoof to her chin Screwball hums to herself for a moment while her eyes begin flickering slightly with code once again. “Ah there we go, found them!  The one on the right without the absurd facial hair is Flim and the other is his twin brother Flam. Had things gone the way they were supposed to.“ Screwball glares at Thomas as she speaks. “They would have met Applejack later in the season and would have tried to steal her farm out from under her.”

Thomas starts scratching the back of his head while looking sheepishly at Screwball. “Yeah I’m sorry about that.”

“Do you think our new artifact will still work in other towns, oh brother of mine?” Flim asked looking towards the grey baseball sized orb sitting atop a pylon above their heads.

“I don’t see why not it fell from the sky so it shouldn’t be tied to this area.” Says Flam as he strokes his mustache. “Come brother our work is done for the night, so we should head to bed. That way we’ll be well rested when we make our get away from these gullible craftsponies.” With that said the twins get up and walk off towards the side exit of the warehouse.

Hearing the side door to the warehouse slam shut Thomas and Screwball make their way to the carriage. Standing in front of the orb Thomas could easily see that it was one of the same orbs that Nightmare Moon launched across Equestria. “We found it Screwball!” Thomas shouts as he looks around the pylon to see if the orb was secured to it in any way. Placing his hands around the orb Thomas readies himself to grab the orb.

“I’m not sure you should do that Thomas.” Said Screwball with a worried look on her face.

“Do what?” Thomas asks as he grabs the orb.

“That!” Screwball shouts in disbelief.

”If I can get this element back to the girls and save them some time, why shouldn’t I try? I mean look it’s not even tied down.” Thomas tries to lift the the orb. His face pales as he realizes something has gone wrong with his plans. “Ummm Screwball, I can’t lift this and my hands are stuck!” Thomas squeaks out in fear.

Before either of them could say another word the orb begins to pulse with a sickening dark light. The pulsing seems to converge on the top, forming a shadowy pool of darkness that quickly takes the shape of a small Nightmare Moon.

“What the hell is that?” Thomas shrieks out as he struggles to remove his hands from the orb.

The little Nightmare Moon looks up at Thomas and her eyes begin to glow an eerie red. She opens her mouth and soundlessly screams at Thomas. While there was no sound there was still a shock wave that buffets against Thomas trying to push him away, but he was rooted to the spot by his hands. Unable to do much of anything Thomas could only watch as Screwball was thrown across the room. The tiny Nightmare decides to stop screaming. Her face then contorts with the most malicious smile he had ever seen. He didn’t even have much time to process the meaning of that smile as bolts of electricity starts to arc from the orb to his chest, arms, and head. Thomas screams as pain becomes the only thing he can feel. The pain is thankfully cut short when his world goes black.

***

“T...as, Th...s w..e p. Tho… c...me on get up!”

“Uhhhh, how many ponies were in that stampede?” Thomas groans as he tries to sit up.

“Thank Discord you’re finally awake!” Screwball shouts as she wraps her hooves around Thomas’s head and tries to squeeze his face off.

“Mhmt mapmenmd?” Thomas tried to say.

“Sorry!” Screwball lets go and floats back a bit.

“What happened?” Thomas asks again as he stumbles to his feet.

“You did something stupid and exploded! I tried to tell you not to touch it right away but you did it anyway.”

“I did what?” Thomas’s eyes grew wide as he realized what she said. “If I exploded how am I here right now?”

“I put you back in one place. I only caught the end of it but what ever struck you blew you into tiny little light motes that spread you all over the room. It looked like any that were close enough would float towards each other and stick though. There were so many spread out everywhere that they couldn’t reach each other to recombine. Thankfully It seemed that I could touch them, so I spent hours putting you back together. Finding every little mote was harder than I had expected. Thankfully though none of them went farther than the warehouse walls.”

Grabbing the tiny pony out of the air Thomas brought her to his face and snuggled her as best he could. “Thank you Screwball. I don’t know what I would have done without you!”

“You probably would have been dispersed for a very long time that’s what!” Said Screwball in a slightly grumpy manner as the much larger human smooshed her with his face.

Pulling her away from his face Thomas looks a bit thoughtful. “You said it took you how long to put me back together?”

“It took me quite a while, so it’s about four am at the the moment.”

“Shit!” Thomas swore as he he grabs Screwball and puts her on his head. “Okay so I can’t touch the elements and those con artists are going to leave later today. We need to get back to the girls and fill them in on the situation and figure out how to stop them.” Tucking his hands back into his pockets Thomas sighs. “Hang on Screwball I’m going to start running in hopes of speeding up our the trip back. This is so going to be such an awkward run.”

Grabbing onto Thomas’s hair Screwball’s smile widens as her ride starts running. “Wee!”

***

While the trip back was shorter than getting out to the warehouse in the first place it still took two hours for Thomas to make it back. Coming in too fast Thomas is forced to put his hands up to keep his sliding stop from tripping himself up and face planting through the wall of the inn. Thomas breathes a sigh of relief. “I hope I never have to do something like that ever again. I’ve seen things Screwball. Things most people are required to pay subscriptions for.”

“Suck it up big guy. You’re an adult!” Giggles Screwball from her head top perch.

“Be that as it may. I didn’t need to know saddles could be used that way!” Thomas shivers as he thinks back on that home he ran though. Looking up towards the window he left from earlier he sees that the curtain has been closed. “I wonder if that means the girls are already down stairs?”  Sticking his head through the wall to check, he sees the girls sitting at the same table they had occupied last night at dinner. Pulling his head back he speaks up. “Yep they’re down here, let’s go tell them the news.” Putting his hands back in his pockets for just a moment the duo phase through the wall. “Hey girls!” Thomas speaks up and waves.

“Hey Tomi!” Pinkie cheers waving her fore hooves in excitement.

“Shush, Pinkie darling, did you forget that most ponies can’t see or hear him and had our dear hostess been more…” Rarity begins chiding Pinkie.

“Observant, hearing enabled, awake.” Rainbow Dash pipes in.

Pinkie begins to giggle while Rarity just huffs in annoyance. “Yes any of those would have worked, Rainbow Dash. I was trying to be less insulting though.”

“I hate to interrupt.” Said Thomas as he picks up and places Screwball down on the table. “But we have a few problems.”

“What kinda problems sugar cube?”

“Did you find the Element of Harmony?” Applejack and Twilight asks their differing questions at the same time.

"Yes I found it, but that's  the easy part.” Thomas begins explaining what happened to the two of them. With Screwball explaining her part. “So now we have to retrieve the element from them before they leave and possible start this whole scheme over somewhere else.”

Looking around the table Thomas could see emotions were mixed. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy looked equal parts horrified and relieved about Thomas’s explosion and subsequent reconstitution. Twilight had the look of curiosity and Rarity had disgust. Applejack and Rainbow Dash had probably the most expected of looks. Pure anger. They both looked like they were about to jump out of the booth and rush off  to pummel Flim and Flam.

Slamming her hooves into the table startling everypony Screwball points at Applejack and Rainbow Dash. “I know what you two are thinking. Running off and beating them senseless won’t fix this. Even if you stop them you’ll probably just make the town mad at us and I don’t think we can touch the element as it currently is.

Applejack seemed to calm down but Rainbow Dash just got more angry. Standing up and pointing at Screwball.  “What do you expect us to do shorty? We can’t just sit here and do nothing, they’ll get away!”

Screwball just shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know what you should do, but based on what I've seen, I told you what you shouldn’t do.”

“She’s right RD.” Applejack said as she places her hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder to get her to sit back down. “If that there element blew Thomas to bits who’s to say it can’t do the same to us. Do we know which one were even going after?”

“We know it’s yours Applejack, based on Thomas’s map, but that doesn’t tell us much.” Said Rarity waving a hoof in Applejack’s general direction.

“What about you Thomas? Do you know which one we’re going after?” Applejack asks while staring holes into Thomas.

“I didn’t get that far before I screwed everything up. So I don’t know what element belongs to each of you. Screwball might know!” Looking down at his diminutive partner her finds her glaring up at him.

Screwball physically Zips her mouth shut and crosses her fore hooves in front of her and looks away. Everypony and one human stare at her waiting for an explanation. Seeing as no one is taking the hint she unzips her mouth. “I can’t say which element belongs to who. To do so would jeopardize everything!”

In a quiet voice Fluttershy speaks up. “So you can help tell us where to look but as long as we as a group figure out what the element is we’ll be okay?”

“Yes. Thomas and I can help, but there are certain things we can’t interfere with and this is one of them.” After Screwball says her piece she floats back to the top of Thomas’s head looking a bit downtrodden.

“Okie Doki Loki. We just have to figure it out for ourselves. What were they again Twili?” Pinkie asks with her usual cheer.

“Oh um, they were Loyalty, Generosity, Honesty, Laughter, Kindness, and when they’re all together a sixth one will appear.” States Twilight from memory.

“Could it be as simple as that order darling?” Asks Rarity.

“Sorry Rarity but they were mention a few times in the book but never in the same order. That kind of annoyed me to be honest.” Grouses Twilight in annoyance.

The girls go quiet for a few minutes as they all think on what the current element could be. When as sudden as the quietness started it ended in shouts.

“HONESTY!” Pinkie and Twilight Shout at the same time. Turning to face each other Pinkie giggles and says, “Jinx!”

“Pinkie, now isn’t the time for games!” Twilight states.

Pinkie gently taps Twilight’s Shoulder “You owe me a dessert.”

Twilight huffs. “Fine Pinkie I’ll give you my next dessert.”

“Okay sugar cubes how did you two come up with that idea?” Applejack asks.

Pinkie looks over at Twilight and motions for her to go first. “Thank you Pinkie. I remembered before things went completely off track.” Twilight glares at Thomas for a brief moment before turning back to Applejack. “When you were holding on to me, to keep me from falling over the cliff you told me the honest truth that I would be safe. I could see in your eyes that you believed every word you said so I trusted you and let go.”

Thomas could feel Screwball dance a little jig on his head. “I’m a bit afraid to ask but how did you arrive at your conclusion Pinkie? Was it the same as Twilight’s?

Pinkie shakes her head. “Noperonie. I didn’t hear their conversation I was trying to get down the cliff myself. Everything Twilight just said makes sense, but I went at the problem from the other end.” Pinkie took a deep breath. “So I said to myself, myself who currently has the mcguffin we currently seek? Why Flim and Flam, and what are Flim and Flam other than twin unicorn stallions? Con artists I said. Right and what is a con artist at their heart? A liar that’s what. Since a liar is a bad thing and we want a good thing what’s the opposite? An honest person that’s what. I’ve known Applejack for quite some time and I know she couldn’t lie her way out of a paper bag.”

“Hey, I could too!” Applejack pipped in.

“It seemed to reason if we’re after Applejack’s element and we have to deal with liars to get it then it would make sense to me that Applejack’s element is Honesty.” Pinkie just smiles as she finishes her explanation.

Rainbow Dash face hooves, Rarity and Fluttershy stare in shock. Applejack grumbles a bit still kind of annoyed at the paper bag remark. Twilight’s jaw just drops as she takes in Pinkie’s weird but surprisingly accurate logic since no pony is refuting it. Thomas and Screwball though just bust up laughing.

“Really Pinkie that’s how you figured it out.” Thomas continues to laugh. “I can’t tell if you’re a genius or not Pinkie, but in either case don’t change.”

“I, um okay,” Rarity stammers “With those delightful explanations out of the way, does anypony see any reason to doubt that Applejack’s element is Honest?”

Everypony at the table shakes their heads. “Alright we know what we’re after but how do we do it?” Rainbow Dash asks.

“Mind if I make a suggestion?” Thomas asks sheepishly while raising his hand.

“Sure Tomi, go right ahead!” Pinkie said happily while ignoring a glare from Rainbow Dash.

“If we’re up against a couple of liars and we are actually trying to get Honesty, maybe we should try to expose them to the town at large.”

Applejack puts a hoof to her chin and hums to herself for a moment. “Exposing their lies with our truth. I like it sugar cube, and it’s given me an idea on how to do it. Hey Twi? How big of an area do ya think ya could affect with your spell? That one that removed the gullibility spell on them there torches?” Applejack asks with a large grin on her face.

“Well not the whole town, but I think I could cover town square with it.”

“Perfect I saw a good couple of dirt patches there I can use. Twi, since you talked with the mayor already do you think you could get him to get all of the important ponies in town to gather in the town square? With Flim and Flam of course.”

“Make sure they bring their carriage with them. Since that’s where the element is currently stored.” Said Thomas.

“I think I can get the mayor to get them all together. Rarity, do you mind coming with me? I could use your business acumen to help convince him.” Twilight asks as she turns to Rarity for a moment.

“Sure darling, I’ll come help dazzle the mayor with my business skills.” Flipping her mane in a flirty manner Rarity smiles at Twilight. “He’ll never know what hit him."

“We don’t need to bombard him Rarity. We just need to make sure he understands how dire the situation really is.” Twilight turns back towards Applejack. “Are you sure you know what you’re going to do to convince the fore ponies that Flim and Flam have ripped them off?”

“Sure as I know my own orchard Twi. Just make sure once they’ve assembled you can cast your spell and leave the rest to me and the Apple clan’s reputation.” Applejack smiles at Twilight, a smile filled with so much confidence even Thomas can see she knows what she’s doing.

“Alright then, so Rarity and I will be heading for the mayor’s office now, but what will the rest of you be doing in the meantime?”

“Well I have a few idea, but you two should get going so the mayor will have time to get things together.” Applejack said as she wave Twilight and Rarity off.

With Twilight and Rarity now gone Applejack turns to the other girls. “Okay I have a few plans hopefully they won’t be too hard to pull off in a few hours. This may or may not be strange to you Pinkie but can you set up some refreshments in town square?” Pinkie squee’d at this and nods her head vigorously. “Thanks Pinkie, It doesn’t have to be huge but enough to calm ponies down at being asked to show up somewhere they weren’t expecting to be.” Looking over at Fluttershy caused her to hide a bit behind her mane. “Sorry shy but do you think you could get some of the local animals to give up a few tree seeds?”

Fluttershy looks a bit confused at the request, but nods. “ I can certainly ask. Do you need a lot of them?”

“Nope just three or four seeds each from a different tree is all.” Applejack explains, then turns to Rainbow Dash. “As for you Dash, you do know where the Warehouse that Flim and Flam are staying at, right?”

“Sure I know how to get to it. I can be there in five minutes, why?”

“Can you keep an eye on it to make sure those no good varmints don’t try to leave town early.”

“And if they do try to leave?”

“Come find me Rainbow Dash.” Thomas says with a mischievous smirk on his face.

“And what exactly are you going to do? Let them escape?” Rainbow Dash snarks back.

“Nope I think I can scare them back into town. They’ve never seen anything like me and I should be able to convince them that they either need to stay in town or only death awaits them if they leave.” Starting to laugh maniacally Thomas actually causes Rainbow Dash to back up in fear.

Applejack just laughs as Rainbow Dash just scowls at Thomas. “Fine I’ll come get you if they try to leave but if you screw up again I’ll find a way to buck you head off your shoulders.”

“Pinkie I’ll help with the baking as long as Gin lets us use the kitchen. Thomas can you go wait in town square? In case Dash needs you or Twilight and Rarity finish early.” Applejack asks.

“Sure Applejack. No problem, any place you want me to look for while there.”

“Actually yes. A large patch of dirt that doesn’t look like it’s been stomped into hard stone.”

“Will do. See you girls later.” Heading for the nearest wall Thomas waves one last time and heads through the wall. “Well Screwball this is going to be a long wait. Anyway you can let me play some of the games on my phone?” Thomas asks as they begin their walk to town square.

“Not quite but I can think of a few games we can play while we wait.” Replies Screwball cheerfully.

***

With noon approaching, town square was filling up with ponies wondering exactly what was going on. The tables were covered pastries and punch and went a long way in keeping the peace. Thomas noticed how many seem to go from looking dour and perturbed to actually smiling after eating one of Pinkie Pie’s treats. So far Flim and Flam hadn’t shown up yet but Rainbow Dash had assured the rest that they were on their way as they had issues maneuvering their carriage through town.

A few minutes later a rumbling sound can be heard coming down the road. It didn’t take much longer before Flim and Flam had parked their carriage on the edge of the square. Walking into the crowd the brothers saw all the food laid out and quickly made their way towards it. “Well brother dear I don’t remember hearing about any parties being thrown” Flim remarked.

“I don’t recall hearing anything of the sort either, brother mine.” Flam said as he swallows a cupcake.

“That’s because I decided to throw this one this morning!” Pinkie shouts as she Pronks, bounces and flips around the pair of unicorns. “I just love throwing parties for ponies I don’t know!”

The twins stare at Pinkie as she continues her acrobatics into the crowd.

Soon a gruff voice calls out silencing everypony gathered. “Okay Number why did you call us here?”

In a rather meek but still clear heard voice Number Cruncher speaks out “I uh, I didn’t.”

“What do you mean you didn’t!” A smattering of fore ponies yell back.

“We called you here!” Pinkie shouts as she continues to bounce around the square drawing all eyes on her. “I just love to throw parties for ponies I don’t know. I find it the easiest way to get to know ponies in a nice relaxed environment.”

Everypony not in the know just stares at her dumbfounded. “You know we're very busy here miss?” Said the gruff voice that called out Number Cruncher earlier.

“Pinkie Pie!” She said as she continued her act.

Unbeknownst to everypony else Twilight was using Pinkie Pie’s acrobatic antics to cast her spell without drawing attention to herself. Soon the entire square was awash with an unseen spell wiping all traces of the spell Flim and Flam were using to coerce the town. As soon as she finishes she gave a quick nod to Applejack to say all was ready for her.

Applejack Smiling Hops up on a nearby bench. “This here party wasn't the only reason we called ya’ll here.” Pinkie quickly stops her bouncing and all eyes turn to Applejack. “We’re here to help your town. If things aren’t changed your entire town will be bitless and possible homeless.”

“How can that be?” A random stallion pipes up near Applejack. “With Flim and Flam’s torches we’ll be at the forefront in keeping Equestria alive in these dark times!”

Applejack drops her smile and looks seriously at the crowd in front of her. “That there is the problem. Flim and Flam’s torches are a sham.” The crowd gasps in shock. Applejack takes one of said torches given to her by Rarity. Turning it on Applejack continues. “Sure they light up and push back the darkness, but their claim that these torches can help plants grow even in this darkness is utter horns-waggle! And I aim to prove it.” Applejack hops down off the bench and moves towards a large swath of dirt that’s been tilled slightly.

“I know none of you know who ah am. My name is Applejack, but I bet many of you have heard of the the Apple clan and even if you don’t know any of us personally I’m sure you know our reputation.” There were murmurs throughout the crowd as those that did know told those that didn’t. “Ah with my family run Sweet Apple Acres down in Ponyville. Much like most of the Apple clan I’m a farmer and any earth pony here should be able to tell you what a farmer is capable of in making sure their crops grow big and strong.” Reaching into her hat Applejack pulls out some seeds. “ I have here three seeds, one Apple, one Acorn, and one Oak seed. Ah’m going to plant these three seed here and show you exactly how these so called miracle torches work.” Stepping down the line Applejack plants one seed in its own separate hole. As she does she whispers to each one. “Ah’m sorry little seed but your sacrifice won’t be in vain.”

Rarity walks behind Applejack and places one of Flim and Flam’s torches near the seeds but giving it enough room should they grow. “Are you ready darling?”

“Sure am sugar cube” Applejack walks back to the apple seed. Rising up on her hind hooves she rubs her front ones together and then slams them back onto the ground. The murmuring begins again as the unicorns and pegasi in the crowd try to ask their earth pony brethren what was happening. Before they even had a chance, the answer started to push up from the earth as a small apple tree sprout began to grow right before their eyes.

The plant soon starts to slow its upward climb so Applejack moves on to the next seed. But before she had even finished with the third seed the apple sprout had started to whither and die. Quickly falling apart and becoming one with the earth once more. Having now finished what she could she stands back and watches as the other two sprouts also wither and die. “This!” She shouted. “Is what happens when you force a plant to grow without direct sunlight!” Wiping her eyes with the back of her hoof she turned back to the crowd. “The ground here is strong these trees could have easily grown here. Without the sun though forcing them starved them and killed them faster than your axes would have.” Pointing towards Flim and Flam, who were at the center of the crowd, Applejack hops back onto the nearby bench. “Those two have conned you. They’ve sold this entire town a scam. Claiming it would benefit all of Equestria. When in actuality, it only benefits them and would only help ruin Equestria.”

Having witnessed something that countered what Flim and Flam had told them the crowd quickly turns on the brothers. Some shouting for their heads, others demanding their money and time back, others still begin to panic. The brothers themselves realizing their luck had taken a dramatic turn for the worse decide to make a break for it.

“I think our welcome has officially worn out, brother dear!” Flim says in a panicky voice.

“I do believe your right.” Says Flam as they ran for their carriage.

As the Twin con ponies reach their destination they came to a screeching halt as they find Pinkie Pie standing there holding a piece of their engine. She had a rather manic smile on her face and was waving her hoof in a way that said. “You’re not getting away using this.” Seeing as their ride was now out of commission the brothers look towards each other and scream. This had the unfortunate effect of bringing their position to the attention of the crowd. Realizing the danger they were about to be in the two began running for their lives. Half the crowd started chasing them while the other half stayed unsure what to do next.

Thomas joins the rest of the girls standing in front of the con ponies carriage. “So any idea how to get that thing down yet Twilight?”

Twilight was silent as she stares at the element still stuck to the machine. She was about to answer when Number Cruncher interrupted them. “Thank you Miss Applejack for showing and talking some sense into the towns ponies. I knew something had been wrong but never realized how bad it was going to get if we had continued on our current plans.”

“Ah shucks, tweren't nothing. Any earth pony farmer would have eventually seen the uselessness of those torches.” Says Applejack as she waves off Number Cruncher’s praise.

“No, No I really don’t think they could have. I believe the way you acted puts you at the epitome of what we should all be striving for.” With that said Number Cruncher reaches out to shake Applejack’s hoof.

Before she could reach out and shake his hoof her eyes begin to glow bright white, and she begins to float into the air. At the same time the element aboard the carriage starts to glow and crack.

“What’s going on! We weren’t trying to destroy it!” yells Twilight in a panic.

The cracks soon cover the entire orb and it shatters into hundreds of fragments. Said fragments begin to circle the floating Applejack. Everypony currently in the square just stares in awe as the fragments coalesce into a necklace upon Applejack’s neck. On the front of the necklace was a large orange gem in the shape of her cutie mark. Upon the necklace's completion her eyes begin to return to their normal colors and she floats back to the ground.

Blinking a few times Applejack looks around a bit confused. “What happened?”

“Woohoo, You did it Applejack!” Pinkie cheers as she jumps up and down while pointing to her neck. “The Element of Honesty is yours now!”

Applejack looks down and her neck and sees her new Element of Honesty. “Huh so ah did.”

Before anypony else could congratulate her the element begins to pulse, releasing a ghostly yet glitchy version of itself. “Um Screwball do you know what that is?’ Thomas asks as he feels her get up off his head.

“You’ll know soon enough!” She laughs as she floats towards the ghost element. Opening her mouth bigger than her entire body Screwball swallows it whole and begins to laugh her tail off. “See you ponies later!” With that she flies toward Thomas, doing a quick flip in mid air she reverts back to Thomas’s phone and lands in his hand.

Thomas looks down at his outstretched hand. “WHAT!” It's the last thing he can say or do as the feeling of being pulled is upon him once more and the world around him is stretched away.
> Augmented Updates
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Augmented updates



Thomas once again finds himself on his ass as he realizes that he’s back in his normal reality.  Removing his glasses he stands and moves back towards his pc. The screen was flashing with a message once again. PLEASE INSERT DISC 3 NOW. 

“Well this looks familiar.” Thomas sighs as he reaches for the disc drive. Placing the recently ejected disc back into its case he quickly pulls the next one out. Taking a look at the next disc Thomas sees exactly what he expected to see. The back was still dark but this time it seemed to have a slight pinkish tinge to it. “Huh, I seem to remember the last disc looking a bit orange. Since Applejack got her element in that one maybe that means this one is pinkie’s!”

“That sounds about right!” Says a small girlish voice from below.

“Who said that?” 

“I’m in your pocket!” Giggles the voice.

Reaching into his pants Thomas pulls out his pocket pc and wakes it up. On the screen was the Anymapwiki program and sitting in the middle was Screwball waving towards Thomas. “Hey, what happened in there with that glitchy copy of the element?”

“Sorry but I can't explain it right now it wouldn't help you and you probably should get that disc started. They have quite the trip ahead of them.”

Looking from his pocket pc back to the disc Thomas places it into the drive and closes it. A moment later the screen changes showing a timer of twelve hours on it. Looking down at his phone at a now smirking Screwball. “Why do i need to wait for twelve hours for this thing to process when the last one only took six and the original was nearly instant?”

Screwball speaks up with a rather smug look on her face. “I thought it would be fairly obvious to you. Do you really want to sit in a cart with six mares for a three day trip? Especially when one is that pink menace and the others only slightly accept you due to said pink menace?”

“I guess not?” Thomas says looking confused.

“Don't tell me, you didn’t notice time seems to work a bit differently over there compared to here?” Giggles Screwball as she scoots to the side of the screen. “It will take them about three days their time to get to las pegasus.” Screwball points towards six moving dots on the screen. 

“Okay i guess that makes sense. Well is there anything you can tell me about the place? So i don't go in completely blind next time.”

“I can't give you too much info I'm afraid. The show itself only showed a bit of the city but the bible had a description of the city as a whole.” Screwball reaches off the screen and pulls out a picture. “It’s a two tiered city. The surface part of the city is home to earth ponies and unicorns that work in or for the upper tier. The upper tier itself is made up almost in its entirety by an entertainment district, with the local pegasi living along the outskirts.”

“Wouldn't that put the ground based part of the city in the dark for the majority of the day?” Thomas asks while studying the picture.

“This picture doesn't quite show it right but the upper portion is actually off to the side like a stair step.” Screwball pulls a small staircase from her mane as she explains the layout of the city.

“I really hope the element’s on the ground!” Shudders Thomas.

“Sorry to say but with the way the girls will be entering the city, you’ll be popping up in the upper portion.” As Screwball explains this she points to a plateau that connects to the upper portion of the city.

Thomas's shoulders slump as his fear of heights starts to creep back into his mind. “ I'm really not looking forward to this.”

“You’ll be fine. It's not like you'll instantly fall from there.” Screwball just smiles innocently as she looks towards Thomas.

Thomas groans as he tries to stop himself from imagining being in the sky. “Hopefully i won't be able to even see the ground.”

Screwball just giggles and then does a over exaggerated yawn to remind Thomas of the time.

“You're right it is getting pretty late. I guess I'll check the news real quick before I head to bed.”

“Goodnight Thomas.” Says Screwball as she wanders off screen.

Thomas shuts off the monitor to his desktop, puts his pocket pc back into his pants pocket and leaves his entertainment room. Making his way into the kitchen he begins to make himself a sandwich as he hadn’t eaten since this morning. As Thomas pulls out the ingredients for his sandwich his fridge beeps at him. A robotic but clearly british voice speaks out. “Master Thomas would you like me to put in an order for bacon and limburger cheese?”

Sighing to himself Thomas looks over to the screen on the fridge. “Yes. Please put in an order like the last time. Hopefully they're still takeing orders with the current problems going on.”

There was another beep from the fridge. “Acknowledged, master Thomas. Thank you for using Alberways grocery delivery service!”


Putting the finishing touches on his BBLT (bacon bologna limberger and turkey) sandwich, Thomas grabs a bottle of water and heads out to the living room to watch the news.

As the tv turns on a commercial for term life insurance is just ending. A moment later a middle aged anchor holding a tablet comes into view. “Good evening. For those just joining us I'm George Bridgewell. Tonights topic, just what's going on in our solar system! First a recap, in the early morning hours today the moon stopped in its orbit and a large dark mass began to cover the sun. A ship was quickly launched to find out exactly what that mass was.” A small image of a spaceship was posted in the upper right as the anchor continued.“About an hour ago we received word back that they had visual confirmation on the object. Here now is a video of what they saw.” 

The video took a moment to focus but what it showed wasn’t a large solid mass moving in front of the sun but a blue and black cloud engulfing it. To Thomas it didn’t quite look natural. It seemed to move in waves and wasn't very thick as holes allowing sunlight to filter through popped up quite often. The video ended as quickly as it started.

“The scientists aboard the Challenger 3 will be sending a probe into the cloud to find out what it's made of. They also hope to gather any further info they can, with the intention to move it along or disperse it entirely.” The picture now shows a picture of the moon with the words moon crisis over it. “On the moon side of things the scientists aboard the lunar base are actually pretty stumped as to the cause of its new stationary orbit. They do claim it's stable and won't be moving closer or farther away from the earth. So far other than the western hemisphere having a high tide longer than it should we haven’t...”

Turning the tv off Thomas stands up. “I don't know if this is coincidental or all my fault. But if it is my fault then I need to help the girls find these elements as soon as I can.” sighing to himself he makes his way to his bedroom.

***

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Thomas startles awake from a restless sleep by his alarm blaring loudly next to him. Rolling over and shutting the alarm off he groans at the time. “Nine am, bleugh it still feels like three am.” getting up he moves towards his bathroom for his usual morning routine.

Getting dressed and grabbing his pocket pc Thomas moves onto the kitchen for a quick breakfast of cereal. Opening the Anymapwiki app on his pocket pc Thomas looks down at the moving dots.

“They should be there pretty soon!” Says Screwball as she saunters onto the screen.

“Oh, good morning Screwball!” Says Thomas between large bites of cereal. “I was wondering last night. Can we really not tell them what the element is?”

Shaking her head while placing her forehooves in an x pattern Screwball speaks up. “We cannot tell them. Forcing them to recognize what their elements are would have the opposite effect.” Audibly sighing and visibly shrinking Screwball continues. “Too be honest if we're dealing with pinkies element I think she’ll figure it out right away. How to actually get it might take a bit more time.”

Having finished eating while Screwball talked Thomas washes his bowl out. “Why do you think she’d recognize her element so easily?”

“Because she’s the pink menace that's why!” Steam puffs out of her head as Screwball shouts her displeasure.

Chuckling to himself. “I don't know why you call her that. Though i think you should try to get along with her. You both seem to have quite a few things in common.”

“You'll know soon enough why i call her the pink menace and that's all i'm going to say on the matter!” With a loud huff and crossing her forehooves, Screwball turned around facing away from Thomas ending the current conversation.

Thomas just laughs as he picks up his pocket pc and puts it back in his front pocket. Having finished with breakfast he goes to check on his desktop to see how much time he has left. “Forty five minutes left. I guess i can go watch some tv for a bit.”

As he heads for his tv he’s stopped by a knock on his front door. “Oh maybe the other set of dvds i order has finally come in. Not that i have the time to mess with them.” Thomas opens the door finding the same delivery guy from a few days ago.

“Hey man i knew this address looked familiar! Thanks again for telling me about the elevator. It made this trip so much easier.” The delivery guy hands Thomas a signature pad.

Thomas quickly signs his name and hands it back. “No problem.”

“Here you go one emergency delivery!” 

Thomas looks down at the box it certainly wasn't big enough to be a box set. “I don't remember ordering anything this small.”

“Sorry dude, I don't know what's in it. I just know i was told to pick it up and deliver it to this address this morning. They paid quite a bit as well.”

Thomas starts to reach for his wallet when they delivery guy stops him. “Don't worry about a tip this time. They gave me quite a big tip when i picked it up to make sure you got it on time.”

“Well thats surprisingly nice of them. Thanks and bye.” Says Thomas as he waves and backs away from the door. Closing the door he stares down at the box. The label reads from Disco Riders Media. 

Concerned and a bit confused Thomas heads back to his computer to open the box. Sitting down he grabs a nearby pair of scissors. Carefully opening the box he removes a small amount of bubble wrap to find a rather high tech looking collar. “I certainly don't remember ordering something like this. Let alone ordering it from Disco.”

“You didn't order it!” Shouts Screwball from Thomas's pocket.

Pulling the pocket pc out and waking it up he looks down on a rather sheepish looking Screwball. “What do you mean I didn't order it?”

“I ordered it for you.”

“YOU WHAT!” Yells Thomas. “I may not be hurting for money, but what right do you have for ordering things for me!” 

At Thomas's bellow Screwball jumps off screen. Peeking her head back out a bit she speaks up. “I-it didn't cost you anything, and you may need it.” 

“What do you mean i might need it? And how did you order something without money?” Thomas calms down a bit as he talks.

Gaining a bit of confidence Screwball comes back on screen. “I'm part of Disco Riders Media. So if i ask for something to be sent for my user they’ll do so. As for why you might need it. Well it's a static collar, like your bracelets. Based on the information i was able to get from your last round trip, it seems as though they were the cause of your ability to interact with their world. So i believe you should be able to replace them with this collar and you’ll be able to have you entire body be tangible or intangible as needed.”

Sighing Thomas looks at the collar. It does seems to resemble a larger version of his bracelets. “Alright, that makes sense as to why i would need it. But i can't see why they would send this at your request. It can't be cheap and why would they have something like this to send out at the request of a program?” Taking off the bracelets, he places them on the desk. Opening the collar and placing it around his neck, Thomas turns it on. As the field covers his body a tingling sensation follows, but quickly fades.

“The reason they sent it when i asked is they know what's going on and have since the beginning.” Screwball whispers the last bit as she looks around in a slightly shifty manner.

“What did you say?”

“I said you might want to get ready the timer is about to end.” Screwball just smiled with sweat drops coming of her head.

“You know as well as i do, that's not what you said.” Seeing she was right Thomas grabbed his stuff and made his way to the center of the room. “We’ll be talking about this later.” Placing the pocket pc back in his pants Thomas makes himself ready as the timer finishes its countdown.
> Virtual Laughter Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Virtual Laughter



Thomas blinks as his eyes get used to the odd lighting he finds himself in. “Hello?” He says out loud as he doesn't see the girls in front of him like he has every other time.

“Tomi!” Shouts the unmistakable voice of Pinkie Pie from behind him. “You’re back with us again!” 

Thomas turns around just in time to witness a leaping Pinkie flying right at him. Smirking to himself, Thomas fully expects Pinkie to pass right through him. To his surprise and her joy she slams right into him bringing them both to the ground. “Oof. Pinkie as happy as I am to see you, would you please let me get back up?” 

Smiling down at Thomas she hugs him and nuzzles his cheek one last time before letting go. “Okie doki loki!” Now standing next to him she reaches down with both forelegs and picks Thomas up standing him back on his feet. “You’re surprisingly light for someone so big.” Pinkie grins as she falls back down on all fours.

“And you’re refreshingly soft for somepony that's been on a three day road trip.” Thomas says as he pats the poofy mane of the giggling Pinkie at his side.

“Why wouldn't she be?” Rarity pipes in. “You don't think we went the entire trip without stopping to freshen ourselves up did you?”

Stepping a bit closer now he did see they all looked pretty refreshed. “Well trips to the ladies room crossed my mind but showers not so much.”

Rarity just huffed in annoyance and turned her head. Floating next to her was Rainbow Dash who had a rather evil looking grin on her face. Quickly dashing towards Thomas she begins to poke him. “So I can touch you now?”

“Seems that way. I was expecting to be solid at some point when i got here, but not right away.” Thomas explains looking slightly worried.

“Good. Then I can give you what I owe you!” Rainbow Dash states as she pulls her left foreleg back and slams it into Thomas’s stomach.

Doubling over and falling to his knees Thomas yells out. “Sonova!” As he sits there in pain he realizes he can still breath pretty easily. His eyes were blurring with tears from the pain but he kept himself from bawling like a baby.

“You okay there pardner?” Asks Applejack as she pushes through a now arguing Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. “Calm down both of you.” Rainbow Dash floats back to where she came from and sits down with her fore legs crossed glaring daggers in Thomas’s direction. Pinkie scoots closer to Thomas and sits down looking worried.

“I’m fine. The pain is letting up and should be gone shortly. Are you next to get your licks in? I'm sure i deserve it.” Thomas look into Applejack's eyes as he tries not to flinch at the hit he expect to come his way. 

“No I ain't. Ah think Rainbow managed to say exactly what I was thinking. Plus I don't think we can spare the search effort of having to find your body when it falls over the cliff if I bucked you.” 

“Oh well thanks for not bucking me off the cliff. Though I guess the offer still stands with the rest of you if you want to hit me go ahead.” The rest of the girls just shake their heads as he looks at each one. The odd one out though is Fluttershy, she just meeps and ducks her head.

“Are you okay Thomas?” Pinkie asks as she helps him to his feet for the second time today.

“I'll be fine. I don't think Rainbow Dash caused me any physical harm.” Thomas says as he touches his stomach feeling no lingering pain.

“Physical harm? I'll give you physical harm!” Rainbow shouts as she jumps into the air. Immediately Twilight and Rarity’s horns light up and drag Rainbow back down to the ground.

“Whoa there Rainbow Dash.” Thomas stammers out while Pinkie giggles next to him. “You hurt me. I've never felt that much pain in my life, but with the way you hit me I should have been gasping for air and vomiting. Neither happen, so im guessing I can only get the pain.”

“Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I blasted you with magic again?” Twilight asks as she taps her hoof to her chin.

A small voice shouts from Thomas’s pocket “He'd just disperse!” 

Reaching into his pocket Thomas pulls out his pocket pc. “Screwball get your tiny flank out here and explain why I'm tangible from the get go!”

Coalescing from his pocket pc Screwball takes one look at Thomas’s face and jets off under Applejack’s hat. “It's because you expect to be!” She shouts from underneath the stetson.

Applejack reaches under her hat and pulls out a squirming Screwball. “What do ya mean because he expects to be?”

Calming down and noticing that Thomas didn't look mad she begins to float back towards him. “When Thomas isn't here he’s as solid as the rocks your standing on, but until now he didn't have the option to be solid here. Now he does. Since being intangible isn't normal for him he didn't think to be anything but normal.”

“So I just have to think intangible and I'll be intangible?” Thomas asks as he stares at his hand. A moment later his entire body takes on a slight transparent look. Smiling he quickly pokes his hand through Pinkie’s mane.

“Ahhh now I can't hug you any more Tomi.” Pinkie whined.

“Don’t worry Pinkie I can change at will it seems. Though now i wonder?” Thomas looks at his hand again and concentrates on just his hand. It slowly solidifies while the rest stays transparent. “Yes it worked!” Reaching over Thomas boops Pinkie on the nose causing her to giggle.

“Ah hate to interrupt your play time but shouldn't we be moseying into town now so we can find the next element?” Applejack says as she smirks at Pinkie and Thomas’s antics.

“I agree darlings. As interesting as Thomas’s new abilities are we do have a world to put right.” Says Rarity with a flip of her mane. The rest nod their heads in agreement and get up to follow her.

Thomas turned to follow Rarity and got his first real look at Las Pegasus. It was bright. The sheer amount of light was enough to block out any other view. The buildings were huge and were a mixture of stone and cloud. “How do these buildings stay together. I know pegasi can touch clouds but shouldn't the stone fall through it?”

“Magic of course.” Twilight says matter of factly. “The stone is enchanted to be as light as the clouds and to stick to them. And the path were about to walk on gives non pegasi a cloud walking spell that equals one hour per minute walked for safety reasons.”

Thomas stares at Twilight as she continues to ramble about all the enchantments that keep this city functioning. “Whoa there Twilight. I don't understand half of what you just said.” Pinkie and Screwball both start to giggle uncontrollably.

Twilight begins to stutter. “S-sorry, it just magic is my chosen field of study and once I get started talking about it, it's hard to stop.”

“It's not a problem Twilight. I just don't know enough to keep up with you. And why are the two of you giggling?” Thomas looks between Pinkie next to him and Screwball sitting on his shoulder.

The question just causes the two of them to burst out laughing even more. “You really don't know what you keep saying?” Screwball says between bouts of laughter.

“Uh no, it's why i asked.” Pinkie doubles over in laughter and Screwball falls off his shoulder. “Quit horsing around, this sky bridge is making me nervous.” The two of them stop for a moment and stare at Thomas then burst into laughter once again. Moments pass but he finally realizes what he did. “I'm unintentionally punning aren’t I?”

Screwball climbs her way back up to Thomas’s shoulder. “Yes, yes you are. Please keep doing it. It's great entertainment.”

“I'd rather not. You I understand getting them but how does Pinkie know them?” Pinkie just grins and Screwball sighs. “Never mind i don't really need to know. Let's just move on.” Thomas looks on towards the other girls and finds them either grinning at the exchange or looking confused as to what was so funny.

“So um Thomas do either you or Screwball happen to know where we need to go? There are a lot of ponies and a lot of buildings to check.” Fluttershy asks as she looks fearfully around the area.

“Sorry i don't, but maybe Screwball knows more this time.”  Picking Screwball off his shoulder he looks at her expectantly.

“Well much like last time i don't know its exact location but unlike last time the area It could be is smaller.” Screwball brings up the map for everyone to see. The map shows all of Las Pegasus but the circle showing where the element could be was actually smaller than the city. “It looks like we only have a few of these hotels to check.”

“Well that makes things a bit easier. Should we check each one out together or split up?” Thomas asks looking towards the girls.

The others immediately turn to Twilight for a decision. Smiling sheepishly for a moment she quickly regains her confidence. “I think we should stay together this time. There could be quite a few more ponies around and it would be a lot easier to lose contact with each other.” The others nodded their agreement. “Based on the map we only have three hotels to check. I think we should go near them first and see if anything stands out about them. If not then we can check them out individually.”

“Okie doki loki, makes sense to me!” Pinkie chimes in. The others voice their agreement as well. 

“Looks like the three we need to search should be in the middle of the strip. So we shouldn't have too much of an issue scoping them all out at once.” Says Rarity as she point towards the their destination.

---


As they walk down the strip Thomas stares in awe and confusion at all the fancy signs floating in the clouds, and the lack of ponies on the streets or floating in the air. Without any traffic it was a fairly short trip to their target area. The three hotels in question are all quite different from each other in design. The first one Thomas notices is actually shaped oddly like the Eiffel tower but more solid with pink crystals growing up the four corners. The outside of the building was pretty well lit but even with all the windows Thomas didn’t see any lights on inside. The sign above the main entrance labeled it as The Spire.

The second hotel was looked like a miniature city all pushed together. Each building was a different size but they all connected to one large tower in the center. At the top of that tower was a slow roiling maelstrom of varying intensity grey clouds. Every once in a while a brief flash of lightning and muffled thunder could be heard. “Hey uh girls? Is that normal for a building around here?”

As a group the girls stop and look towards the building Thomas is pointing to. Rainbow Dash starts to snicker at him. “Don’t you know anything!” She points to a sign that has been slowly floating around the entryway. “It’s Minihatten’s most popular restaurant It’s called the Maelstrom room for a reason!”

“Rainbow, I've never been here before of course I don’t know anything. But what about the lightning, It doesn’t exactly sound right. It sounds a bit muffled?”

Rainbow Dash throws her fore hooves into the air with an exasperated huff. “Do i really have to explain this to you. Free floating lightning would be dangerous, so they’ve taken to bottling it into tubes around the building to give it the random lightning and thunder feel without the danger of it hitting somepony.” 

Thomas stares with wide eyes at the building. “The ingenuity of what magic allows here is just nuts!”

Rainbow Dash put her fore hooves to her hip and strikes a proud pose, “Ponies are great, what were you expecting?” The rest of the girls just kind of roll their eyes while smirking at her bravado.

While Thomas and the rest of the girls were still looking at Minihatten, Fluttershy had turned towards the last building of the three they needed to investigate. “Um Girls?” She quietly said. Due to the lack of ponies she was heard rather easily and everyone turned towards her causing her to hide behind her hair. Without saying any more Fluttershy points towards the third building they were supposed to look into. As one the group turns toward the building Fluttershy is pointing at. Unlike the first two not only is it brightly lit up but there are quite a lot of ponies moving around the entrance. The building itself looks like a large glass colosseum with a pony rearing up, although only its head and fore legs are visible.The sign above the entrance calls it Maximus.

Twilight taps her chin, “While that does look like where we’ll need to go, I think we should go check the other two first to see if they could shed the light on what’s been happening around here.”

Thomas looks down at Twilight while the rest stare at the Maximus. “So do we split up to investigate the slightly creepy empty hotels or do we do the smart thing and stay together?”

“Their not creepy, they’re just empty.” She hums to herself for a moment. “While splitting up would be faster you are right it may not be the best of ideas. So we’ll stick to the original plan. Though I don’t know which one should we look into first, any ideas?”

Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash all shout “Minihatten!” They each share a look at each other then the rest of the group, and in a calmer voice hiding a bit of excitement say “Minihatten.” 

“Okay, I guess we’re going to Minihatten first unless anypony else has a reason to try the Spire first?” Twilight says as she looks between Applejack and Fluttershy, who just shake their heads no.

Thomas falls in line next to Pinkie as they begin to walk towards the entrance. “So why are you so excited about stopping here first?”

“Candy!” Pinkie sings out as she bounces into the air. 

“Of course it something like that.” Screwball bemoans from Thomas’ shoulder.

“What’s a hotel have to do with candy?” Thomas asks plainly ignoring Screwball’s comment.

“It’s not candy specifically darling.” Rarity says after over hearing Thomas’ question. “Minihatten’s first few floors are a large shopping plaza, meant to simulate all the stores the real Manehatten is known for. I myself am hoping to get a few glimpses of some of the latest fashions to get ideas for later, and If I had to guess Rainbow Dash is hoping for a wonderbolts gift store.”

“Okay, candy I can understand, Rarity just wants ideas, but where exactly does Rainbow dash intend to store her stuff. None of you brought more than your personal saddle bags?”

Pinkie turns around and begins to walk backwards. “Oh that’s simple I can just store random things in my mane.” Pinkie demonstrates this by shoving a hoof into her mane and pulling out random objects. Starting with a yo-yo with a winged Twilight on the side saying “I’m a princess”. Thomas just stared as she quickly replaced that with a trophy that said Best Young Flyer on its base and before Thomas could get farther than the R in the name she had already shoved it back into her mane and replaced it with a bowling ball. The bowling ball then rolled off her hoof and quickly picked up speed as it began to roll down the path they had come from. “Oops, looks like I owe Mr. Cake a new bowling ball” Pinkie sheepishly says as she Thomas and Screwball watch as the now speeding bowling ball hits a bump in the path and launches into the clouds.

Screwball just moans on Thomas’ shoulder. “Great she can access hammer space at will”

“What?” Thomas asks as Screwball continues to groan into her hoof.

“She just means the place where the things go when I put them in my mane, but I can’t access them at will, just when it’s funny or I need to.”

“Uh Pinkie, when you need to, is kinda what at will means.” Thomas says as Screwball screams in frustration from his shoulder.

“Oh well in that case, I guess I can.” pinkie grins happily.

Thomas just shakes his head at Pinkie’s antics and begins to jog after the rest of the girls as they reach the door to Minihatten with Pinkie on his heels. Keeping his hands tangible he grabs the door and starts to step inside while Pinkie runs in through his legs giggling uncontrollably.

The inside of Minihatten looked exactly like an earthbound mall. There were at least three stories of stores, but they were all shuttered. Pinkie skids to a stop nearly bowling Rarity over as all the girls had stopped with their mouths open in aghast at the sheer emptiness of the building.

“If your looking to rent a room we have plenty! If your looking to do some shopping, I'm sorry to say that the shops are closed and I haven't the foggiest idea of when or if they will open.” States a stallion sitting behind the nearby registration desk.

A collective gasp came from Rarity, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash. 

“No Ideas!?”

“No candy?!”

“No collectables?!”

All three take on the looks of a kicked puppy as they turn to the stallion at the desk. “Sorry ladies, but I have no staff to run the shops. They’ve all gone to Maximus hoping to be set for life.”

“Set for life?” Twilight asks as she walks towards the stallion.

“Oh yes, it seem that anypony that can catch the owner’s eye will play a game against him and if they win, he’ll make them a silent partner and they will be set for life.” The stallion sighs, “Though since this is Gladmane i’m talking about, he doesn’t lose. Not sure how he does it but any game with a bet on the line be it a game of skill or chance he always comes out on top.”

“Don't that sound a bit odd with things being as they are?” Says Applejack leading the rest of the group to stop behind Twilight.

The rest just nod their agreement while Twilight voices her opinion. “It does seem like a strange thing to offer right now. Thanks Mr… Um”

Putting his right fore hoof to his chest he bows slightly “you can call me Big Spender. If you are in need of a place to stay, your welcome to stay here, and I’ll even give you a deal you can have the penthouse suite for the price of a single normal room.”

“Thank you for the offer Mr. Spender but I’m not sure we’ll be here long enough to take advantage of it, but should we need to we’ll be glad to come back here.” Says Twilight with a smile. Turning back to the girls and Thomas. “Okay, let’s go check out The Spire, to just make sure nothing’s going on there.”

“I wouldn't worry about going there. They're closed. I think I'm the only pony around that isn't trying to take Gladmane up on his offer.” Calls out Mr. Spender at the now leaving girls causing them to stop.

“You wouldn't be trying to keep us from staying at a competitors place would you Mr. Spender?” Rarity asks the stallion with a smile on her face but a scrutinizing look in her eyes.

“Perish the thought, i may not like Steel Spires’ narcissistic ways, but I would never stop a customer from staying in another hotel if they prefer that aesthetic over mine!” Mr. Spender put his fore hoof to his forehead and feigned indignity with a smile on his face.

“That's very good to hear Mr. Spender, and should we need a place to stay we'll happily come back here.” Rarity's eyes seemed to brighten up and she wave goodbye as they all started to head for the exit again.

---

A short trek later they were standing in front of the Maximus. There were ponies wandering everywhere. A rather large amount were wearing uniforms that seemed to fit with the theme of the building. The rest looked like they were anxious to start playing games. It wasn't to hard for the group to get inside though, as there wasn’t a line. As Thomas looks around the main floor all he can see are crowds of ponies playing games. The atmosphere itself seems off somehow, the games certainly look like they would be fun but no pony was smiling or laughing. More often than not the only sounds other than the games themselves were heated shouting of frustrated ponies.

Fluttershy feeling a vibration in the floor starts to look around, very quickly her eyes fall on Pinkie Pie. “Um girls something's wrong.” Squeaks out Fluttershy as her eyes go wide at the increasing vibration of Pinkie pie.

As a group they turn to look at Fluttershy, but stop when their eyes land on Pinkie. “What's wrong sugarcube?” Asks Applejack looking quite concerned.

Thomas who was standing in front of Pinkie drops down to see what was wrong while reaching his hand over to put it reassuringly on her head but stops short when he sees her face. She was grinding her teeth and her eyes looked like they were burning with flames of rage. “Pinkie, what's wrong?” Thomas had never seen her look this way before. There was no hint of her usual playfulness, she looked like she was ready to explode at any moment.

Before anyone could say anything more Pinkie jumped into the air and screamed “This place isn't fun!”
> Virtual Laughter Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Virtual Laughter part 2



Thomas falls backward landing on his rear at Pinkie’s sudden yelling. ”What the hell Pinkie?” Thomas exclaims to the still airborne mare.

If she heard him she made no acknowledgement of it. She just continues to abuse gravity like it personally offended her. Her ears blow clouds of steam while she grinds her teeth at the scene before her. Her mane and tail are no longer poofy replaced with a bed of spikes pointing behind her.

The girls look around in worry about the attention Pinkie had to be generating. To their surprise no pony is paying them any attention. “What in tarnation is going on in here. She made enough of a ruckus to wake all of Ponyville?”

“I don't know,” says Twilight “it's like their all too engrossed in their games to care about anything else.”

Thomas finally gets back to his feet and waves his hands in front of the still floating and fuming Pinkie to no avail. “Come on Pinkie snap out of it.”

“Yeah snap out of it you pink menace!” Screwball yells from Thomas’ shoulder actually sounding worried.

Waving her hoof at Thomas, Fluttershy has him lean down towards her. “I think it was something she saw that started this. Maybe you can block her sight or force her to look at something else?”

“Ooh, good idea Flutters!” Thomas smiles at Fluttershy, which causes her to hide behind her mane with a small smile on her face. Standing in front of Pinkie again, Thomas concentrates for a moment and makes himself both physically and visually solid. He then reaches both arms around Pinkies head and pulls her to his stomach.

“What the hay are you doing?” Asks Rainbow Dash in a confused but angry tone as she hadn't heard Fluttershy's suggestion as she was enthralled by games.

“I'm trying to comfort her and keep her from seeing the rest of the room.” 

Pinkie’s body soon drops her hind legs hit the floor while her front legs wrap themselves around Thomas. “Thanks, Tomi.” She says while looking up at Thomas. The flames in her eyes had died down but they were still there, now mixing with tears as she looks like she is about to start bawling. “This place is wrong, so very, very wrong.”

“What do you mean, it's wrong?” Asks Twilight.

Taking a couple of breaths she Pinkie lets go of Thomas. She then jumps back away from him standing on her back legs. She throws her left hoof into the air and takes a deep breath. As soon as she does so the music starts. The music seems to come from the game room itself as the sounds of various games become the beat and melody. From the sounds of coins being stacked to balls being bounced, nothing is left out even the ponies in the room join in with hoof stomps, and chants about having to win. Before anyone can say anything about the melodic chaos around them Pinkie begins to sing and spin towards the game room. 

The words to the song didn’t matter to Thomas at the moment as Pinkie’s spinning had taken her into the throng of ponies trying to get between games. Making himself intangible again he takes off after her with the girls following after albeit at a slower pace as they couldn’t just run through the crowd. 

Pinkie stops spinning for a moment singing out “These games should be fun!” She points to a set of air hockey tables.  “These games should make ponies happy, but I don’t see anypony being merry, and that’s just scary!”

As she finishes the line she pronks up to the top of a nearby pillar causing it to wobble. Seeing a possible accident waiting to happen Thomas rushes over to the pillar and grabs it trying to keep it stable and prevent Pinkie from getting hurt. She quickly jumps from the pillar down to the top of a whack-a-manticore and starts to dance across one arcade style game to another all the while continuing her song. 

Twilight finally catches up to Thomas and stabilizes the pillar enough for him to let go. “Thanks Twilight. If the rest of the girls catch up, spread them around the room. While I keep on her tail.” As soon as he finishes talking he starts running after Pinkie once again, not giving Twilight a chance to respond. 

Pinkie continues her dancing across the tops of some games with each new game beginning to tip, threatening to start a domino effect. Thomas thinking quickly starts slamming his hands down on the flattest parts of each game forcing them back onto the flat ground. Thomas didn’t notice nor care if anypony else noticed what he was doing all that mattered to him was keeping Pinkie from hurting herself. As she nears the end of the row she leaps from the last game and lands on a plate being held by a statue. The statue in question is made of clouds in the shape of a rearing stallion offering the plate to the heavens. Thomas couldn’t see how it’s keeping Pinkie aloft, but it wouldn’t do it for long as it was already starting to sag under her constant movement. Rushing over Thomas stands under the plate and puts his hands under it to keep it from dropping out from under her. 

Seeing that Pinkie was staying in one place the girls converge on the pair. “Are you alright?” asks Twilight. 

“I’m fine. Pinkie isn’t all that heavy to me, but this statue doesn’t like her bouncing. Can one of you stop her or maybe keep this statue together?”

“Oh no! We can’t stop her from singing. If we did that it would hurt her worse then if she fell from where she is.” Said Fluttershy looking concerned.

“Fluttershy is right melody magic can cause massive backlash for all involved if it’s stopped abruptly by outside forces. And I don’t know any spells that would prevent that cloud statue from breaking apart, sorry.”

“Sorry Twi, it’s not the clouds holding that up.” Says Rainbow Dash as she waves a hoof at part of the statue breaking off some of the clouds. “It’s a wire frame. Fairly thick wires that can take some weight but not the constant pounding on it.”

“I guess I could try to strengthen…” Twilight begins

“YOU!” was the last thing anyone heard when everything stopped. Pinkie had stopped singing, the ponies in the game room had stopped chanting, and everything had gone quiet, even the machines were silent. The shout had come from two sources. Pinkie still standing on the plate on her hind hooves was pointing at stallion that was high above them in a office overlooking the floor and said stallion was pointing back towards Pinkie. The stallion seeing that his choice was seen left the open window and disappeared back in to his office. The room quickly returns to its strange atmosphere.

Hopping off the plate and landing next to the girls, she turns to face them. Her mane and tail have poofed back to their normal cotton candy look, and her eyes have lost their anger but replaced with a look of determination. “Well girls we have our bad guy!”

“Pinkie, dear, you know we love you but we have no idea what your talking about.” Says Rarity with a pleading look on her face.

“Didn’t you girls, and Tomi, hear the song?”

“Of course we didn’t you pink…” Screwball quickly closes her mouth when she sees a withering glare from Thomas.

“Sorry Pinkie, but I was too busy keeping you from hurting yourself or others as you bounced around the room.”

Pinkie blushes, “Oops guess I was too caught up in the moment to pay attention to what I was doing. But shouldn’t you girls have known it instantly?”

“Sorry Pinkie.” The girls say all looking sheepish.

“We were too confused and worried about you that we didn’t get pulled into the song like everypony else.” Says Twilight.

Pinkie’s eyebrows furrow in frustration and thought. “Okie dokie lokie, I guess I could summarize it.” Pinkie’s right foreleg waves towards the ponies in the game room. “At first glance those ponies look like their having great fun playing all those neat-o games. But, and it’s a big but.” Pinkie giggles at her own immature joke. “I, being a pony that enjoys making others happy, can easily see that none of those ponies are having fun.”

“They all look like they’re just really focused on winning though.” Says Rainbow Dash incredulously.

Pinkie looks a bit sad at that remark. “I can see why you think that, Dashie. Even at your most competitive and focused I can tell you’re having fun. These ponies look like their doing everything out of desperation, fear, or in some cases apathy. And it hurts knowing that some pony caused this, intentionally.”

“How do you know somepony caused this Pinkie dear?” Asks Rarity.

“As much as I hate to agree with her thinking,” Screwball says taking this moment to speak up startling Thomas from her sudden outcry, and interrupts Pinkie before she can say anything else. “In all likelihood the element is partially to blame for this, and maybe like last time it’s found a pony to use.” 

Pinkie taps a hoof to her nose and nods at what Screwball says.

Tapping a hoof to her chin Twilight hums a bit to herself. “That sounds plausible, and I think we can make an educated guess, but I think we’re here for Pinkie’s element. While two instances aren’t usually enough to get an entire pattern it looks like the Element has some effect on its wielder in some fashion. Applejack figured something odd was going on pretty quickly, even if she didn’t have a name for it. If the next Element effects one of us in some fashion then I think we can guess whose it is a bit easier. But that does leave one question, Pinkie how do you know who’s causing the problem?”

“Oh that’s pretty simple. The song did it. I called him out and he replied.” Replies Pinkie with a large grin on her face like it was the most obvious answer ever.

Screwball face hoofs herself and groans. “I shouldn’t be surprised at this but it’s her so of course this is how it works.”

Thomas begins to laugh and ruffles Pinkie’s mane. “Good job Pinkie I think you made this easy.”

Pinkie giggles at her mane being played with, but quickly gets a serious look on her face. “It may be quicker, but I’m not sure it’s going to be easier.”

Before Thomas could ask what Pinkie meant by that a fanfare begins to play on the opposite side of the game room. Ponies around the room immediately stop what they were doing and turn towards a litter being carried by four pegasi floating above the game room. Standing atop the litter was a stocky earth pony stallion his coat was a grayish persian blue with a silver and grey streaked mane. He’s wearing a navy blue suit with sequin trim and a blue green sequin cape. Around his neck was a gold chain and hanging off the chain was a black orb, that seemed to have a slight pink tinge to it. He smiles and waves to the crowd as he passes. The litter comes to a stop in front of the girls and the pegasi land. 

“Salutations, I am Gladmane the proprietor of this fine establishment.” He sweeps a foreleg towards the room. “And you my pretty pink provocateur have been chosen to play a game against me.” As soon as the words leave his muzzle the room erupts in angry shouts.

“She hasn’t played any games!” Yells one random pony.

“She’s not on any of the high score tables!” Screams another.

Gladmane clears his throat and a microphone descends from the roof. “My dear ponies, I told you when I started this contest, that I would decided who gets chosen and why. Your right most of my choices have been those that tend to play quite a bit or are really good at their chosen games, but those were never what drew me to chose them. So if you want me to continue this game you will cease this complaining and abide by my choices.” The crowd didn't look happy but they quiet down and some even went back to their games.

“Now as I was saying, you my dear have been chosen. So if you can beat me in a game of your choosing I'll have you set for life!” Gladmane announces with a smile on his face, but the smile doesn't seem to go any farther than that. His eyes are focused entirely on Pinkie Pie, but there is no joy in them just a coldness that stands in direct opposition to Pinkies normal warmth.

Rainbow Dash flies up to the litter and tries to get into Gladmane’s face “So what happens if she were to lose this game? Not that she's going to.”  Before Gladmane can reply two pegasus guards fly up and place a couple of spears between Rainbow and Gladmane angled with the sharp ends pointing at Rainbow. “Whoa, what in tartarus are you doing?” She exclaims as she flaps her wings hard, back pedaling away.

“Gentle stallions, please, there’s no need for the weapons. She meant no harm.” Gladmane says as he waves away the guards. They quickly pull back their spears and disappear as quickly as they came. Gladmane turns his gaze towards Rainbow Dash. “Well that depends on what she’s willing to bet. Now a lot of the ponies that end up playing against me seem to be willing to bet well everything. So should they lose I take them under my employ. They get free room and board but all their possessions belong to me.”

“That sounds like indentured servitude?!” Twilight exclaims. “But that’s not right, no pony should own another! The Princess would never allow that!”

“Indentured servitude is a bit harsh miss. It suggests I treat my employee’s as though their beneath me, and with the way things seem to be going I don’t think our dear Princess is around to say anything about how I run by business. Plus I treat my employee’s quite well you can ask any of them.” 

The girls and Thomas looked around and noticed quite a few toga wearing employee’s smiling and nodding their heads. Pinkie’s eyes narrow as not a single one of those smiles appear real to her. “I'll challenge you, but i don't want your bits. I want the orb around your neck!” The fire was creeping back into Pinkie's eyes once again as she states her intent.

Gladmane looks down at the orb than back to Pinkie. “I'm sorry, but that's not an option. It's one of a kind I couldn’t bear to part with it.” 

Pinkie stomps her hoof onto the ground. “What would it take for you to give that bauble up?” 

Gladmane chuckles, “I really don't think you have anything I'd want enough to risk it.”

“Then how about if i throw my friends into the mix?”

“Pinkie!” The girls shout.

“I'm sorry girls, but it's the only way if we don't get it the worlds done for anyway.” Pinkie pleads with her friends.

Thomas could see the girls didn't like this one bit but they resigned themselves to it. “Are you sure this has to be done Pinkie? I'm sure we could come up with another way to get it from him.”

Pinkie doesn't say anything but looks at Thomas and shakes her head slightly.

“Oh and what makes you think your friends would add enough to your worth that i would risk my bauble as you called it?”

Turning to face her friends Pinkie looks each one of them in the eye and they each nod giving an unspoken go ahead. Pointing to Rainbow Dash who starts posing, “Rainbow Dash is the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria. Imagine the audiences she could bring in with a daredevil show.” Next she points to Fluttershy who does her best not to hide. “ Fluttershy here may look meek and her name is quite well deserved but she can tame even the fiercest of beasts.” Moving on to Applejack who tips her hat at the acknowledgement, “Applejack is part of the famous Apple family and owns one of Equestria's best apple farms.” Rarity anticipating her turn pulls out a small red cloth from her saddle bag and some needle and thread. Working quickly she turns the small bit of cloth into an intricate rose. “As you can see Rarity is a seamstress…”

“Fashion designer!” Rarity gruffly interjects.

“Fashion designer,” Pinkie corrects. “With quite a lot of skill. Imagine the costumes she could come up with.” Finally pointing to Twilight who just stands there not quite sure what to do. “And last but not least is Twilight Sparkle, the personal student to Princess Celestia herself. And if you know anything about our princess you know she only takes the most magically gifted or intelligent as personal students!”

“Oh, and what makes you so special to be among such paragons of their chosen fields?” Asks Gladmane looking approvingly at the other girls.

“I hate to waste this on somepony like you, but here.” Pinkies left fore hoof reaches into her mane and rummages around in it for a moment and then pulls out a chocolate cupcake. She quickly tosses it to Gladmane where it lands on his outstretched hoof like she had placed it there personally. He looks down at it in surprise. “Don't worry about it and just eat it.”

Shrugging at the inexplicable he decides to ignore the how and do as she says and eats it. A smile starts to form on his face immediately and for the first time since he introduced himself actual joy shows in his eyes. “That is by far the best cupcake I've ever had the pleasure to consume! You have yourself a deal. I'll wager my orb and you wager you and your friends.” Focusing back on Pinkie the coldness returns to his eyes. “Well my pretty little baker,” Pinkie shivers at this comment. “While you did change the stakes, I'll still allow you to chose the game on the condition i get to choose how many rounds we have to play.”

“I accept!” Pinkie shouts with determination in her voice. “And the game we shall be playing is battle clouds!”

With the horse shoe thrown the crowd that had been watching the whole exchange begin to cheer and chant “game time.” Gladmane just smiles. “Perfect, the game will start in ten min on the central platform. So don't get cold hooves now.” With that said the four pegasi holding the litter take off towards the central platform.

Rushing up to Pinkie, Rainbow Dash puts both forelegs on Pinkie's shoulders. “Pinkie have you gone mad!? You're terrible at battle clouds. We've played hundreds of times and you've never once beaten me!” 

Pinkie just giggles. “Silly Dashie, I'm not terrible i just enjoy seeing you so happy when you win. I don't mind losing if it makes my friend happy!” 

Rainbow Dash looks completely stunned at the revelation as Pinkie continues to laugh at her. “Buh, buh what?” Rainbow sputters.

“Come on girls I got a game to win” Pinkie says as she turns and walks toward the central platform. The girls share a look laced with apprehension mixed with a little bit of confusion and a smidgen of hope.

“Can she really do this?” Asks Twilight.

“Its Pinkie, she may not be the most serious pony around but you saw the the look in her eyes. She won't let us down.” Says Applejack as she gets up and starts after Pinkie, with the girls quickly following suit except for Rainbow Dash.

Thomas seeing her just float there pokes her in the head “Equestria to Dash. They’re leaving without you. And i think Pinkie will need your support in this.”

She blinks a few times and focuses on Thomas. “Right, right I need to get over there.” She says with a worried look on her face. And in the blink of an eye she's already reached the group leaving Thomas and Screwball to play catch up.

“Screwball, I'm not sure how much they actually need us?”

“It doesn't really matter how much as long as you help them as you can. Even though you need them more than they need you.” Says Screwball with the last bit lower than the rest.

Thomas looks over at Screwball, “What was that last bit?”

“Hmm, it was nothing. Come on we need to catch up and make sure no cheating occurs. Or maybe do a little cheating ourselves.” With that Screwball flies off laughing after the other girls forcing Thomas to run after her.