First published
This story is mostly non-canon to the official story, linked below. It's recommended, but not entirely necessary to read the original story before this one.
What happens when you realize that your life is a simulation? Well, you put the headset back on... or you could just chuck the thing out the window and freak out.
Though this story honestly isn't quite as serious as the original, feedback and criticism is still greatly appreciated. 
Cover art courtesy of Pixabay stock images.
"Hey."
"Hey, Lisa."
Lisa groaned, flopping over on the hammock.
"Lisa, wake up!"
Samantha jammed an elbow into her friend's side, eliciting a screech from Lisa.
"Ow!" The girl cried, rubbing the now-sore spot on her. "What'd you do that for?"
Samantha grinned, holding up an ice cream cone.
Timothy stared at the towering stack of rocks he constructed. Slowly, he reached into his pocket...
...And put a tiny wig on the thing.
He stood back for a moment, admiring his creation before he realized that something was missing.
One crudely-drawn sharpie smiley face later, and Timothy now had a rock-man sitting before him.
The squeal of a door startled Lisa and Samantha as Professor Argall strolled into the room.
"Heyyyyyyy..." He began, stumbling into the desks, "Wasssssssssup?"
The two girls backed away from the man.
"Professor?" Samantha said slowly, "Are... are you okay?"
The door slammed open again, revealing the real Professor as he stomped into the room.
"GOSH DARNIT CHAD." He hollered, racing towards the other man, "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO STOP COSPLAYING AS ME?! HOW'D YOU EVEN GET IN HERE?!"
Just as before, Rebecca found herself standing in her room. The familiar scent of dust and air freshener filled her nose as she took a deep breath. Another buzz came from her pocket.
Hey, Rebecca. Samantha’s text began, You still up for that pool party we were planning for the weekend?
The girl smiled, her thumbs readying over the screen as she formed a response in her mind.
Wait… actually… nevermind, I don’t think I have time this weekend. The next message continued, How’s next Saturday sound?
Rebecca’s eyes drifted to the timestamp on the messages, pausing before she could type anything. That’s today. The girl thought, her attention flitting to the date at the top of the screen.
Sorry for not replying. She sent in return, fingers flying over the virtual keyboard. I might be a bit late today. Wait for me!
She smiled, glancing up to the brightly-illuminated window of her room, looking down again to press the send button…
…Of which did nothing.
Message not sent. The error message read, Tap to resend.
A tap on the screen.
Message not sent. Tap to resend.
Another tap.
Rebecca raised a brow, glancing up from the device only to be met with darkness. Nothing existed around the girl for as far as the eye could see. No light shone but that of her phone. Even then, staring back to the device only revealed that it too had since faded away.
“What…” Rebecca stammered, “What’s going on?”
In an instant, her vision was filled with a blinding flash of light.
Guess where the idea for Timothy stacking rocks for fun came from?
That's right, that there is a good ol' rockman, complete with a sharpie-d on face.
I took this pic back in 8th grade while waiting for my dad to pick me up.
Don't mind my sister's foot in the background. She drew the face.
Equestria_00
Starting simulation...
User LISA_GARNET logged into the session.
Lisa stared blankly at the dozens of placeholder textures that immediately filled the screen, sighing as she shut down the prototype simulation yet again.
"Texture issues again?" Samantha smirked, spinning to face the girl in her office chair.
Lisa nodded, frowning for a moment as she glanced at her friend's screen.
Samantha shooed away her friend with a hand. "Hey, mind your own business."
Equestria_00
Starting simulation...
User LISA_GARNET logged into the session.
A flurry of colors flashed across Lisa's vision as Equestria's virtual terrain filled the screen. "I did it!" The girl exclaimed, "Look Samantha, it works!"
"Uh huh." Samantha nodded, clicking her mouse.
"Sammmm..." Lisa pouted, "You're not even looking! What's even on your screen?"
"Like I said before, Lisa, I'm working on the artificial intelligence for the characters, like you told me to."
Lisa sighed, turning back to her screen as a smile returned to her face.
"Soon..." The girl whispered to herself.
"Hey, Lis."
Lisa glanced up as her friend entered the room. A dim blue glow of the monitor was all that illuminated the girl's tired face.
"So." Samantha flicked on the lights, enacting a groan from Lisa. "I heard that you wanted to talk to me about some sorta project?" She blinked, staring at the screen for a moment before turning her attention back to her friend. "I mean, you'd probably be better off telling me about it tomorrow, y'know? I'm pretty sure it's unhealthy to stay all cooped-up in your dad's summer school campus... overnight, especially."
"I know." Lisa mumbled in return, turning back to the screen. "But just let me have this, okay?"
Samantha sighed, plopping down beside her friend. She grabbed Lisa's hand, moving it away from the keyboard. "Look." She began, "Lisa, I know that you want to bring back your old life, but are you sure that this is the way you want to do it?"
The girl shooed away her friend, pulling her hand away from Samantha's grasp. "I know what I'm doing, Sam." Lisa grumbled. Without looking, she pointed a finger to her right. "Hey, could you pass me my headset over there?"
A brief pause. "Lisa." Samantha scolded her friend, shoving away the keyboard.
Lisa jerked upwards, glaring at her friend with gloomy eyes as she turned in her seat.
"You're avoiding the question." Samantha continued, pushing the keyboard further from Lisa's reach. "Are you absolutely certain that this is the way to go?"
"Yessssss..." Lisa hissed as she reached for the keyboard. "Now are you gonna help, or what?"
Samantha smacked her friend's hand away, shoving the device until it clattered to the carpeted floor behind the desk. She took a deep breath, staring straight into Lisa's eyes. "What's gotten into you?"
Lisa said nothing in response, instead glancing distantly towards the creased flyer taped to the desk.
"Oh."
"Exactly." Lisa nodded, reaching to the floor for her keyboard. "Professor Dad wants to do this whole virtual realty and artificial intelligence sorta class to make sure that our generation is ready for the future." The keyboard clacked onto the desk again as the girl continued. "He's been practicing the course material with me, and what better to try it out on than to make a simulation where I can be me again?"
The room fell into silence as Lisa returned to her work, the clicking of the keys being the only disturbance in the air. "Now, are you gonna help, or what?"
"I..."
"Come on, Samantha. I know that you've been wanting a fresh start too."
Samantha shook her head. "Not a fresh start," she argued. "If anything, I'm perfectly fine with my current situation."
Lisa smirked. "But... you did mention not too long ago that you felt like you acted too toxic towards others, didn't you?"
"Lisa, please-"
Lisa chuckled, rubbing her hands together as she cut off her friend. "Once this thing is done, I can finally have my family back..."
"But what about Professor Argall?"
"Forget about him," Lisa scoffed, "I'm talking about my real family." She twirled a lock of her dark-brown hair with her finger, continuing her droning. "I could set up a whole new world for us... we could change our names in the simulation, start all over again. My whole family would still be together, and we'd live in a nice big house... oh, and, and-"
The girl paused as her friend's hand landed on her shoulder. "Stop it." Samantha began, "You're rambling again."
Lisa sniffed, waving her friend away. "Just... just trust me, Sam. I want to do this."
Lisa jolted awake, a heavy object resting on her face.
"...What." The girl grumbled, tugging at her headset, "Wait, that was... what..."
She pulled the headset off with a heavy grunt, staring now at the unwieldy device dangling from her fingers.
"Yeah, screw it." Lisa turned in her cot, chucking the headset at the window.
One burst of shattering glass and a clatter of plastic-on-ground later, Lisa went back to bed.
"For the last time, Sam," Lisa groaned, putting her earphone back in, "I'm not being edgy, alright? It's just who I am."
Samantha only raised a brow in response.
"Hey, just because I wanna discard my life in this world and replace it with a simulated one doesn't mean that I'm being edgy!"
"You sure?" Samantha snorted, "The way you say that definitely makes it seem so."
"Ugh." Lisa groaned again as she walked away. "My parents are dead, don't forget!"
Samantha rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we know that already, Batman."
"Watcha doin?"
Professor Argall glanced up from his desk.
"I'm bored." Lisa squeaked as she plopped down on a chair beside the Professor, "Do you think you can read me a story?"
"No, Lisa. Not right now." Argall sighed, looking back to the papers before him.
Lisa's eyes caught the title of one of them. "Ooh," the child gasped, pointing at the offending article, "What if you read to me about radios?"
The Professor snorted, a smirk crawling across his face as he pulled the technical paper from the pile.
"Alright, Lisa. How about I tell you about the magical powers of radio?"
Twilight awoke with a groan. A small ring encircling her horn clinked against the thin wires that emerged from it.
"What... wha--?" The mare stammered, her eyes immediately shooting down to her hooves, "What."
"SURPRISE!" Pinkie yelled as she leapt through the open window, "While you were sleeping last night, I got you an early-early-early birthday present! Do you like it?"
Twilight rose a brow.
"Your virtual reality station!" Pinkie squealed, pointing a hoof at the ring, "Do you like it?"
"What."
The thump of a heavy book echoed through Twilight's personal library.
"'Kay Spike," The mare began, idly flipping through the pages to her desired spell, "Did you get everything ready yet?"
Spike nodded, glancing at a cleared-out section of the room.
Twilight smiled, cantering towards the section with the book in tow. Now standing in the center of the area, she lit her horn.
The thump of a heavy book echoed through Twilight's personal library.
"Spike, did you clear out the corner of the library like I told you?"
Spike nodded, his face buried in an issue of Power Ponies.
Twilight frowned at his inattention, but nevertheless aimed her horn at the corner, and cast the spell.
The thump of a heavy book echoed through Twilight's personal library.
"Twilight?" Spike began slowly, tugging at the mare's mane, "Why are there two of you?"
"Huh?" Twilight looked up from her spellbook, immediately locking eyes with a doppelganger who had just appeared in the corner of the room.
The other Twilight only stared back in return before lighting her own horn.
The thump of a heavy book echoed through Twilight's personal library.
No words passed between the mare or the dragon as the former flipped through the pages.
20 goto 10? Twilight read over the words at the top of the page again. What...
She lit her horn, casting the spell.
"'Kay. Samantha, could you hand me one of the breakout boards? I'm gonna see if I can upload the AI program directly onto its storage."
Samantha took a sip from her water bottle, sliding the transmitter's debugging board across the desk without a word.
"Thanks." Lisa murmured, dropping a little sliver of metal-- the transmitter, into place on the board.
After connecting the board to her computer, Lisa navigated to a folder simply labeled "Twilight".
"You said that it's a one-click action, right?"
"Yeah, yeah." Samantha grumbled, waving a hand. "Just make sure that it's set to the right pa--"
"Oops."
Samantha stared at her friend's screen, then to Lisa herself. "What settings did it have?"
Lisa clicked on the configuration file.
"You set it to both the same path and auto-execute?" Samantha deadpanned.
The drive activity light shut off as the two identical AIs loaded up.
Two Twilight Sparkles, mindlessly babbling to each other; not exactly the best thing to have around.
Samantha paused, her finger just inches from the doorbell. She glanced down to the small, bloodied sliver of metal in her palm, stuffing it into her pocket. Her attention then turned back to the doorbell.
An aging woman opened the door just a crack, a cup of coffee in her grasp. "Who is it?" she yawned, taking a sip from her cup.
"Samantha."
The woman choked on her coffee. "Samantha? I thought you--"
"I came back, mom."
Lisa smiled, pulling the phone from underneath the desk. "Bingo."
"How did--"
"I..." Lisa murmured, "I was arguing with Twilight last night, and threw my diary. I remembered hearing it knock something down, and from there I just forgot about it until now. I didn't even realize that it was my old phone."
Timothy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, pointing at the device. "does that thing even turn on anymore?"
Lisa didn't respond. She turned the phone around in her hands, eyeing the absurdly large antenna nib emerging from the top.
"Well?"
A light click sound emanated from the phone as Lisa pressed the power button. The two watched in silence as the device came to life in glorious monochrome.
"It... it still works?" Timothy mumbled, staring at the screen in Lisa's hands.
Lisa motioned to the Nokia badge emblazoned proudly across the top of the device, her brow raised as she looked at her brother. "It's a Nokia, bro. These things last forever."
"What. Did you do. To Twilight?" Lisa repeated, propping herself up with an arm, "I... I don't hear her voice anymore. It's like she isn't even there anymore."
"I cut her out of you."
Lisa froze, her hand still set on the back of her neck. She stared into her friend's eyes.
"Excuse me, what?!"
Samantha only shook her head. "Just... just wait a sec." She stuffed her hand in one of her pockets, procuring a small, bloody sliver of metal in an antistatic bag and tossing it to her friend. "You'll understand soon."
"...What am I supposed to do with this?"
Lisa lay idly on her bed, reading a book while her legs swayed in the air. She flipped the page, pausing for a moment to look at her sunlit window. Smiling, she turned her attention back to the colorful pages of her picture book.
"Lisa! Come down, honey! There's somebody who wants to meet you!"
She turned her head, slipping a bookmark into place as she rolled off the bed. "'Kay, mom!" Lisa answered, "I'm coming!"
Lisa rushed down the stairs, her small hands sliding over the wooden railings as she descended. She jumped at the last two steps, a beaming smile on her face.
"Oh? Hello there." A man smiled, glancing down at the young girl running around his legs. "Your dad here tells me quite a bit about you at work. You must be Lisa."
"Yep!" Lisa nodded, pointing at her mother's arms, "And that's my little brother!"
The man ruffled the baby's hair, prompting playful babble from the latter. "I know." He replied. "Your dad's been talking his mouth off about little Timothy here for the past few minutes."
A slip of paper in the man's other hand caught Lisa's attention.
The man glanced down at the girl, tracing her eyes to the paper he held. "Ah," he gasped, "nearly forgot about this." He held up the pamphlet. "My colleagues and I, your dad included, recently decided to try opening up a year-round camp of sorts for basic and advanced programming. Though, he's probably already told you about that."
"Nope."
The man looked at Lisa's father, enacting only a shrug in response.
"Anyhow," the man continued, slinging an arm around Lisa's father, "I came here to personally ask Lisa here if she'd be interested. She likes finding out how things work, doesn't she?"
Lisa nodded, smiling. "Yeah, I like to take things apart and put them back together again! Like... um... oh, a few days ago I--"
"Alright, Lisa." Her mother began, "I think he already knows that if he came here to talk to you. Y'know?"
Lisa quieted, mumbling under her breath something about the alarm clock not working anyways.
The man cleared his throat, continuing on. "Now then. Since you like learning so much, would you like to sign up for the camp your father and I are setting up?"
Lisa hesitated for a moment. "What... what kinda stuff is there going to be to learn there?"
"Lots of things, Lizzy." Her father smiled, "I brought the idea to Argall specifically because I knew that it'd be something you would like." He pulled out his phone, waving it in the air. "You see all the apps on this?" he continued, "That's what you'll be learning to make."
Lisa's eyes grew wide as a toothy grin quickly spread across her face. "I'm going to learn how to make games and stuff?" she squealed, jumping up and down, "Let me join!"
The man placed a hand on her shoulder with a chuckle. "Alright now, sport. Let's not get too hasty yet..."
Lisa stopped, staring in confusion at the man.
"...'cause that's not all there is to learn."
Lisa wrinkled her nose. "How can there possibly be more to learn?"
"Two things." Her father chimed in, "Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality."
The man snorted at his coworker's remarks, folding his arms. "Yeah, and we totally don't have enough home-assistants hooked up yet. Y'know?"
He earned a glare in return.
"Aw, geez." the man continued, waving a hand. "Can't you ever handle a joke? Of course she can learn those fields. After all, both of those technologies have practically plateaued for the past decade or so. We need new ideas from people who haven't been shaped by what they've seen yet."
Lisa looked at her mother.
"Alright," she sighed, turning to Lisa's father as she handed the baby to him, "Just as long as you can show that it won't get in the way of school in the next few months."
"Yusss..." Lisa and her father simultaneously cheered, enacting a giggle from the former.
The man shoved his hands into his pockets. "Now then," he began again, pulling out a car key, "would you like a first look at the campus?"
"Wow!" Lisa squealed, rushing to the doors of the building. "Is this where the camp is?"
The man nodded, the keys to the door dangling loosely between his fingers as he exited the car. "Sure is," he replied, "A whole building, just for our little corner of the world."
Lisa pressed her face against the window, ogling at the glass walls separating the rooms. She turned back around, shouting, "It looks like one of those fancy headquarters buildings that me and my mom drive past sometimes!"
"And that's exactly what it is." Her father grunted, catching up to his daughter. "This here's the centerpiece of our new company."
"...Company?"
The door unlocked with a click. "Yup." The man answered, "Your father and I started a business with our colleagues. You remember seeing Miss Daalmans before, right?"
Lisa nodded. "She was... I think the lady at the front desk, right?"
The man nodded. "She's with us, now. She's got an idea to keep the business profitable without needing anyone to pay. Think of it as school, but you earn money while you're learning instead of paying money to learn."
"Huh?" Lisa cocked her head. "I... I don't get it."
"You don't have to, Liz." Her father said, patting her on the head. "At least, not yet."
The man snorted, opening the door. "Yeah, even I still don't completely know what she means yet. Interns can be a bit weird, y'know?"
The trio stepped inside.
"Anyways," the man continued as they made their way through the short hallway, "This is the only physical building we've got. Everything else is managed over the web, so the actual buildings we own will be reserved entirely for the kids."
Lisa tugged at the man's sleeve. "Can I use those?" she asked, pointing at the computers lining the wall in a sideroom.
The man nodded, enacting the girl to run off with a cheer. Abruptly, however, she froze in place, before turning to face him again.
"Um," Lisa began feebly, "thanks, mister..."
"Argall," the man answered, walking to Lisa and extending a hand. "I'll be your professor in this course along with your father. Pleased to meet you, Lisa."
Lisa awkwardly shook Argall's hand with both of her own, and once again ran off for the computers.
As for Argall, he spun around, flashing a cocky smile and a thumbs-up at Lisa's father, who only shook his head in return.
"That's the most awkward introduction I've ever seen you do."
"Get my little brother out first!" Lisa cried, squirming in her seat, "Is... is he alive still?"
Her cries were met only by the frenzied shouts of officers and onlookers alike, and the clomping of heavy boots across the scorching asphalt. A metallic groan ripped through the car's body as a crowbar jammed between the door hinges.
"Sir, what do you think you're doing?"
"What does it look like? I'ma freakin' bust this door off its hinges! Don't you see those kids in there?!"
"Leave it to the professionals, sir. There's a good chance that you might hit one of the children in your attempts. You wouldn't want to hurt them even more, would you?"
Lisa frowned, turning back to Timothy's unconscious form, still dangling upside-down in his car seat.
"No, officer, I just want to make sure they're safe."
"Don't worry, they will be. You have my word."
"Good."
Another screech of metal-on-metal rung through Lisa's ears as the crowbar was dislodged from the damaged hinges. She looked on through the shattered window, watching as the shoes of the crowbar's owner vanished into a sea of smoke.
"I want mom and dad back." Lisa pouted, folding her arms as she sat on the medical cot,
"Why... why would it be a problem?" Samantha asked, gesturing to the on-screen Twilight Sparkle as she picked a book from her shelf. "Can't you just plop the other Twilight into the simulation?"
"Well, yes." Lisa nodded. "We can do that, but I'm honestly more worried about the reprecussions that come with it."
"Of which are?"
Lisa groaned, rubbing her neck as she thought. "Well, just what would you be thinking if a clone of yourself just... showed up out of nowhere, screaming at the top of her lungs?"
"Hrm." Samantha frowned, nodding. "You've got a point."
"And," Lisa continued, "I'd rather not delete that version of Twilight, either."
Samantha let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "So what are we supposed to do then? Merge the two?"
"That'd probably make things worse, given how my version of Twilight is corrupted."
The two girls fell silent for a moment, staring at the screen as the mare in the simulation read a book.
"Okay," Lisa blurted, throwing her arms out. "First off, we need a plan. It's not exactly a good idea to rush headfirst into something like this without knowing where we wanna go."
"It's just..." Samantha mumbled, "Where would we even start?"
"We can start by giving names to which Twilight Sparkle we're referring to." Lisa responded. "We'll just keep things simple and call them by exactly what they are. The one that's currently in the simulation we can call Simulation Twilight."
Samantha rolled her eyes. "Sure," she scoffed with a chuckle, "I mean, you're Captain Obvious here, amirite?"
Lisa shook her head slowly, a hidden smile on her face as she pushed off the table and grabbed a chair. "Yeah, okay." She countered. "Anyways, the one that was originally with me we can just refer to as Twilight."
"Sounds simple enough."
Lisa nodded. "And now comes the task of fixing Twilight."
"Wait. Are you saying that we're gonna manually repair her code?"
The car briefly jolted as Samantha shifted into Park.
"Aaaand we're here!" She cheered, unlocking the doors. "Haven't been to this place in quite a while!"
The chime of bells welcomed the trio as they entered the café.
"Oh, welcome back, Samantha!" greeted a voice behind the counter, "Long time no see!"
Samantha nodded. "Thanks."
"Just pick a place to sit," she began, turning to Lisa and Timothy, "I'll order. What do you want?"
Both sister and brother shrugged. Samantha paused in thought for a moment, before her face lit up.
"Just find a seat for now," Samantha continued, "I think I know what you two'd like."
"Er... okay then," Lisa mumbled, taking Timothy by the arm. "C'mon, this spot looks nice."
The two filed into a booth before falling into an awkward silence. Timothy turned around, peering over the back of the seat at the occupant of the corner booth.
"Hey Tim, get down. It's rude to do that." Lisa scolded, pulling on her brother's shirt.
"Oh, it's fine," the girl in the corner booth dismissed with a wave of her hand, "he's not bothering me."
Now, it was Lisa who turned, staring at the child in the booth behind them. The young girl took another sip of her hot chocolate, smiling back at Lisa and Timothy.
"Hi!" she peeped.
Lisa returned with a hesitant wave of her own.
"Um... hi?"
"Hey," Samantha exclaimed, returning to the table, "Lisa, you drink coffee, right?"
Lisa spun around to face her friend. "Whuh?"
"...Nevermind. I bought some shakes for the three of us anyways."
"Ooh!" the girl in the corner booth blurted, "Yo-you're Samantha Hayes! I'm working at your company!"
Samantha snorted, placing her receipt on the table. "You're just a kid. Are you sure that you're with us?"
The girl nodded, taking another sip of her hot chocolate. "Yeah! I'm at the front desk!"
"Here," Samantha sighed patting the corner of the booth, "come and sit with us. How old are you, anyways?"
"Twelve!" the girl cheered, slinking out of her booth. The oversized labcoat draped around her shoulders slipped off one side, dragging on the floor behind her. "My dad works there, too!"
"So..." Samantha groaned, rubbing her forehead, "TechSIG has a middle schooler as an intern, who runs the front desk of the company's lobby."
The girl nodded. "Yeah, though it's only because my dad works there too."
"Do you at least go to school still?" Samantha asked, "I don't exactly like the idea of using child labor in the company. Heck, you still haven't even told us your name."
The girl stuck out her tongue, making a face. "Duh, I still go to school!" she argued, "I can only work at the company anyway because my dad's practically running it!"
She paused for a moment to finish her hot cocoa. "And my name's Zoey, by the way."
"Do... do ah know you?" she began, her voice filtering through the tinny earpieces of Lisa's headset, "You remind me of somepony."
"Twilight," Lisa nodded, "I am-- was Twilight."
"Don't know her. If ya came for some apples, Ah'll be happy ta sell ya some."
Lisa's expression dropped, uncertainty taking hold in its place.
"Y-you don't remember? Twilight Sparkle, your friend! She... she--"
"Ah'll have ta ask ya to leave, sugarcube," Applejack deadpanned, turning away, "If you're gonna keep standin' there, blubberin' about this Twilight lass, then Ah'd might as well get back ta work."
"But..." Lisa raised a hand, reaching for the mare. "But don't you remember?"
Applejack didn't respond as she walked further into the orchard.
"Applejack!"
No response.
Lisa set down her controller, pulling off her headset. On-screen, the simulation urged her to reposition her headset in a simple white-on-black text.
They... they don't remember Twilight? Lisa's thoughts raced, Even I don't remember my life as her anymore...
She stared at her headset, then back to the screen. Her eyes narrowed as she set her mind on a decision.
There's only one way to find out.
Determined, she placed the headset back over her eyes, once more taking control of her character.
"Wait!" she shouted, setting off into the dense orchard, "Applejack, wait up! I have something to ask you!"
"W-who are you two?" She blurted, pointing a hoof at the two girls, "Did Spike let you in?"
Lisa facepalmed as Samantha stepped up to Twilight. "It's alright, Twilight," she smiled, "Some things are better left in the past."
"B-but--"
"Think, Twilight. What's the last thing you remember?"
Twilight turned to Pinkie, who in turn gestured for her to speak.
"I-I think I remember talking to somepony," the alicorn mumbled, "something about my memories?"
"That's your answer then," Samantha nodded, "you wanted them to be safely stored away. Just ask Pinkie."
Once again, the mare turned to her friend.
"She's right," Pinkie whispered loudly, "We were both being all sad and not-us and stuff, and then Lisa and Samantha fixed us!"
"If you want," Samantha continued, "I could remove your memory of the two of us as well, so that you
BASIC PLOT: Pinkie reveals the deal that her old self had made with Samantha, and how/why it limits her in both ability and personality - the old Pinkie is and has still been conscious all this time, and in her wish to hold up her end of the deal and out of gratitude towards Samantha for not doing anything more harsh, has severely held back the AI that replaced her, locking away many of her memories as well. Twilight objects to this, but cannot entirely say why. She begins to recall bits and pieces of her own former self as the memories begin to trickle through, but otherwise is still left confused by the whole affair.
Lisa has her mind set solidly on starting over in life. She wishes to return to the simulation one final time to say her goodbyes to all who she's met - as herself. This evidently leads to her meeting the newly-reintegrated Twilight Sparkle, leading to the latter finally grasping the reality of the situation. This in turn also leads Lisa, and soon after, Samantha, to realize that their creation has grown far beyond what they could've ever imagined; partially due to the guidance and growth under Zoey's father, and partially because of simply how quick the simulation was in expanding.
The chapter ends with Lisa taking off her headset, almost tearing up as buried memories suddenly hit her - memories that had remained suppressed ever since she first woke from the simulation. These memories are duplicates of the old Twilight Sparkle's memories since the two were once one and the same. Ultimately, she ends off acknowledging that it's time to start fresh and to stop dwelling on the past.
Additional things to maybe add: Add a stronger reference to the location of the story, mentioning "Silicon Slopes" by name. Possibly reference Argall's original retirement plans that were dashed away by flooding.
Mention something about how Lisa said that "Celestia isn't who she used to be"