> Breakdown
>  by Xz Hacker
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One: “The Signs”
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter One: “The Signs”
Twilight Sparkle was having another day of tending to the library, with the aid of Spike. They had both just finished cleaning and organizing the library for the third time this week. As Spike pushed the last book into place he sighed and then fell to the ground in exhaustion. “Twilight, that's the third time this week, don't you think we have got it clean enough yet?”
Twilight gave Spike an annoyed look. “No Spike, I don't, Something still doesn't feel quite right.”
“Well maybe if we took a break you could figure out what was wrong, rather than rearranging the place everyday.”
“Spike, we have only done it three times this week.”
Spike cocked his head to the side. “You know it's Monday right? You started this last night and haven't really taken a break since.”
Twilight stopped and thought for a second. Spike was right, they had been at this for almost an entire day straight. “Oh, I'm sorry Spike, something just isn't right. Maybe your right, maybe if we take a break it will come to me.”
Spike sighed with relief, and then realized just how hungry he had become in the long hours of cleaning and rearranging. “Maybe we could grab something to eat while we think?”
Twilight nodded, feeling her own hunger for the first time in hours. “Yea, that's sounds like a good idea too.”
The both of them went out to the nearest restaurant to eat. As they were preparing to order, Spike saw Rarity siting at a nearby table slouched over, staring off into the distance, looking quite depressed. “Rarity! Want to come eat with us?”
Rarity perked up her head to look over at the two of them. She smiled slightly, and slowly walked over to them. “How are you two doing this evening,” she asked with as much warmth as she could muster in her current mood.
Twilight and Spike could see that something was wrong. Twilight decided to be the one to ask. “Are you OK, Rarity? You seem a little sad.”
Rarity dropped what little of a fake smile she had been trying to hold. “Yes, I am a little out of sorts. Last night, I was making a dress for a client and for the life of me I couldn't get it right. I spent hours redoing that dress, but no matter what I did I seemed to be getting something wrong, and I couldn't quite place my hoof on it.”
“Well that's odd, Spike and I spent all of last night and this morning doing almost the same thing to the library. I can't explain it, but something just wasn't right with it.
Rarity nodded in agreement. Spike rolled his eyes. “What is this some kinda unicorn thing, where all the unicorns get obsessive over something on the same day?”
Despite the obvious sarcasm in his voice, Twilight took the statement literally. “Don't be absurd Spike, it's just a coincidence that both me and Rarity are having these troubles on the same day.”
Before Spike could explain that he was kidding, the chef of the restaurant burst from the kitchen doors yelling. “No! This is unacceptable, I refuse to work in these conditions any longer!” At that he stormed out of the restaurant, head held high.
The restaurant owner came running after him. “Wait, come back!”
Twilight and Rarity both looked at each other in confusion. After several moments the owner drug himself back through the door. “Um, well... I seem to be short a chef ladies and gentlecolts, I apologize but it seems as if we need to shut down early today.”
There was a considerable deal of mumbling as the patrons of the store slowly made their way out. Half of them were confused, the other half annoyed. Once outside Rarity looked at Twilight and Spike with a curious expression. “Darling, do you think that our dear Spike may have been on to something, that chef was a unicorn, and was well known for taking pride in his cooking.”
Twilight got a small frown on her face. “Like I said before, it's just some coincidence, three unicorns having a bit of a bad day is no proof of some weird conspiracy theory.”
Spike shook his head, having changed his mind about the seriousness he meant his previous statement to have. “I don't know Twilight, it seems a little weird to me , I mean there aren't that many unicorns here in Ponyville.”
Just then Pinkie Pie walked up. “Oh yeah, there are like...” She paused for a minute, “ten at most.”
Rarity looked at Pinkie. “Yes Pinkie Pie, don't you know everypony? Exactly how many unicorns are there in Ponyville?”
Pinkie Pie blinked a little. “Well, there is you and Twilight, and...” she trailed off and sat for several seconds staring off into nothing, before finally getting an annoyed look on her face. “There's... no... it's... I can't remember anyone else!”
Twilight and Rarity both sat dumbfounded. After a few moments of silence Twilight spoke. “Really Pinkie? You can't think of any other unicorns? That isn't like you at all.”
Pinkie Pie's look of annoyance slowly turned to one of panic. “Twilight! When is your birthday?!”
Twilight nearly jumped back in surprised at this random outburst. “What do you mean? You know when my...”
Pinkie Pie cut her off. “NO! I CAN'T REMEMBER ANYPONY'S BIRTHDAY!”
Twilight and Rarity stared for around ten seconds as Pinkie Pie nervously shifted her weight from one set of legs to the other, desperately trying to remember all the facts about people that just yesterday she knew. She finally got too impatient with her own memory. “I need to go!” At that she took off into the distance.
Rarity turned to Twilight. “Well I would hate to use Pinkie Pie as an example of odd things occurring, but even you must admit that was quite strange.”
Twilight nodded, “that was more then a little strange, even for Pinkie Pie, maybe we should follow her.”
They began walking in the direction she ran. After a few minutes they found her laying next to the side of a two story building, surrounded by several ponies. Twilight rushed over to her. “What happened?”
One of the many ponies in the crowd quickly offered an answer. “She was running along, and a pot fell from that window ledge and hit her on the head.”
Twilight looked the mare who had said it directly in the eyes with a questioning glare. Twilight knew that Pinkie Pie had a natural way of avoiding that type of danger, but she didn't have time to question her any further, instead she turned her attention to the now unconscious Pinkie Pie. “She seems to have been knocked out by the blow, we need to get her to a hospital soon, hopefully she doesn't have a serious concussion.”
With the aid of several of the members of the crowd that had surrounded Pinkie Pie, Twilight manged to quickly and safely get Pinkie Pie to the nearby Ponyville hospital. After getting her checked in, Twilight and Rarity began waiting for the news on their friend. After about an hour nurse Redheart came out and began talking with them. “Are you two friends with miss Pie?”
Twilight nodded her head. “Yes, how is she nurse?”
“She is going to be fine, in a few days she will be totally back on her hooves. However I must say of all the ponies in Ponyville I'm quite surprised to see her here.”
Twilight nodded again. “Yes, usually her...” she hesitated to use the phrase, “Pinkie sense, lets her avoid things from falling on her.”
Nurse Readheart shook her head. “I don't even mean that, I've looked through her medical records, the only other time we have ever seen her is for food poisoning. Other that that she has been in perfect health most of her life. Not only that, but we Earth Ponies have the ability to heal quite quickly, and knowing her, she probably would heal faster than me.”
Rarity nodded. “It does seem a lot of odd things happening lately.”
Nurse Readheart looked back and forth for a moment, and quietly began to talk. “Yes, it seems that a considerable deal of Unicorns have been hurting themselves recently. Of course there are so few here that we haven't had any incidences, but the word is that in Canterlot, the accident rate has spiked in the last month or so.”
Twilight, Rarity, and Spike all looked at each other, each knowing that they were all thinking roughly the same thing. Rarity decided to not torture Twilight. “Twilight dear, would you like it if I stayed to wait for Pinkie, while you investigate these strange happenings?”
Twilight nodded thankfully. “That would be perfect Rarity, keep me updated on how shes doing.”
Twilight and Spike walked out of the hospital. Spike had been racking his brain since Rarity said the word investigate. “Twilight, how are we going to look into these weird events, I mean, they seem kinda unrelated for the most part.”
“I'm sure Princess Celestia is already aware of some of what is happening, although I think  we should tell her about Pinkie Pie's accident before we do anything else.”
Spike hopped off Twilight's back and pulled out some quill and parchment. “Ready!”
“Dear Princess Celestia, my dear friend Pinkie Pie has had a terrible accident today. She just happened to have a pot fall on her head when she was passing by a window. The incident seems quite odd and I have recently learned of a spike in accidents, mainly magical ones in Canterlot, over the last month. I'm not quite sure how, but I have a suspicion that these incidents are related. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Spike finished the letter with a flick of his wrist on the last letter. “Done!” He raised it in the air before him and blew fire on it as he normally would. When the fire hit the paper, however, instead of being magically whisked away as it always had, it burned to a crisp, and the ashes fell to the ground before them.
They both stared for several seconds at the ashes before the wind caught them and blew them away. “Spike! Why did you do that?”
“I didn't do it on purpose! The spell didn't work!”
Twilight's eyes grew wide. “You mean that... that can't be, Celestia's spell that links your fire to her has never failed us before.”
Still upset over being blamed Spike continued to defend himself. “I swear Twilight it was the spell I...”
Twilight cut him off. “I know you  didn't mean to Spike, it's OK. I'm sure there is a logical explanation for this.” Twilight stood there for a moment thinking. All that came to mind was that the Princess could be hurt or ill, and neither of those thoughts were very appealing. “Maybe we should go tell Celestia in person, since it seems we can't contact her by ordinary means.”
Spike nodded and was about to climb back on Twilight's back when she stopped him. “Wait, you better go explain to Rarity what we're doing, so someone knows where we're going and why. When your done meet me at the train station, I should be able to buy us tickets by the time you get there.”
Spike nodded once again and rushed back into the hospital to talk with Rarity, while Twilight headed straight for the train station.
Twilight wasn't entirely sure what to make of the odd circumstances she had seen in just the last few hours. She just couldn't shake from her mind the thought of Celestia being ill. Could that be the cause of all these problems? No that couldn't be right. Before she knew it she found herself at the train station.
She slowly walked up to the ticket master, still quite distracted with her owns worries. “Excuse me, could I get two tickets to Canterlot?”
“Sure miss, that'll be one hundred twenty bits.”
Twilight began to pull out the money when the amount he had asked for actually registered. “One hundred twenty bits?! Since when did tickets from Ponyville to Canterlot cost so much?”
“Ever since half of our trains are down for repairs, they've been dropping like flies over the last few weeks, not a lot of trains means not a lot of space, which means pretty expensive tickets.”
Twilight hesitated, but reluctantly paid. She really needed to see Celestia, and soon, high ticket prices or not. Just as she was turning around Spike ran up. “I finished telling Rarity, she said she would make sure everypony else knew where we were going.”
“Oh good, and you got here just in time, I just finished paying for the tickets, the train should be leaving here in less than five minutes.”
Twilight and Spike got on the train, and departed right on time.
An hour later the train ride had been going smoothly. Spike was sleeping on the way to compensate for the huge loss of sleep due to cleaning the night before. Twilight probably would have also succumb to exhaustion if it wasn't for the worries that kept playing through her mind. As she was once again going through all the facts about recent events in her head, she suddenly got a worried look on her face. She began looking around with an unusual expression. Everyone else on the train didn't seem to notice. She moved over to Spike and shook him gently. “Spike! Spike! Wake up, can you feel that?”
Sleepily Spike opened an eye. “Feel what Twilight?”
Before she could open her mouth to explain the entire train lurched violently. Spike flew out of his seat and straight into the back of the one in front of them. Twilight barely managed to hold herself up. The train began to make a loud screeching noise as it slowly came to a stop. Twilight got up and headed for the train's engine. The rest of the train's passengers either were worriedly talking amongst themselves, or looking out their windows. When Twilight arrived at the engine the conductor was kicking the engine angrily. “Dern thing! Shoulda never switched from the old uns!”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked as she entered the room.
The conductor looked up in surprise, but didn't bother protesting her presence. “Oh I, uh, well, the old models ran just fine, then they uh...” the conductor hesitated, “they replaced most of them with these new fangled Unicorn devices.”
Twilight nodded. Now she understood why the conductor was hesitant to explain himself. He, as well as many of the other Earth Ponies that work in fields that Unicorns are beginning to revolutionize, are quite angry at the new devices, and how only Unicorns can fix them. “Would you like me to take a look? I know a considerable deal of magic.”
“Yeah do what you want, can't make it any worse than broke.”
Twilight opened up the console which contained the main components used to keep the spell running that operated the new trains. She stared for several moments taking in the intricacies of the devices, and looking for the fault. “Well this is just strange.”
The conductor made a grunting sound in question. “Well, the devices seem to be running just fine, as a matter of fact the whole thing seems to be operational, it's just that, well, it is as if the spell that kept it moving isn't powerful enough.”
“Whada ya mean? This train has been moving for the last hour asn't it?”
“Well that's the thing, if the mechanical part isn't damaged, there is no reason for the spell to deteriorate at all.”
“Well if your done poking around, I need to get word to base to get a mechanic out here.”
“How long will that take?”
“We're pretty far out miss, it will take my boy Joey about five hours to get back to Ponyville, and then another hour to get here with all the parts they'll need on another train.”
“Oh that's no good, I need to speak with Celestia soon.”
“You're going to see Celestia? Oh wait, you're Twilight Sparkle ain't ya? That's where I recognized you. Well I'm afraid there ain't much I can do to help ya. Canterlot is an hours run from here, but they won't have the parts we'll need. It would take three hours to walk there.”
“That's better than waiting here for five.” She began to turn and walk out, “and thanks for the information.”
“No problem, you take care now!”
She walked back to where Spike was sitting. Spike had already gone back to sleep. “Spike! Wake up!”
Spike snapped awake. “What? Where are we?”
Twilight put her hoof to her face. “We are on a train, we were going to Canterlot, remember?” She asked in an irritated tone.
Spike squinted a bit, trying to remember. “Oh yeah, but why isn't it moving?”
“Did you hit your head or something? The train broke down, remember?”
Spike sleepily nodded his head. “Oh yeah that, can I go back to sleep now?”
Twilight rolled her eyes, and then levitated him onto her back. “Come on you lazy dragon.”
She walked out of the car and began the long walk to Canterlot. She trudged alongside the railroad track for the next hour and a half straight. Spike somehow managed to sleep the entire way. When she finally got up the mountain she sighed with relief. “Spike, wake up. We made it!”
Spike merely shifted his weight on her back and mumbled something incoherent.
Twilight rolled her eyes. She wasn't going to fault him for being tired, after all, they did stay up practically all night working. On top of that, today had been pretty stressful. Thinking about it, she realized just how tired she was, carrying him all this way. Would Celestia really mind if she waited till tomorrow to talk with her? There wasn't anything urgent to discuss, just several strange events that had peeked her curiosity. Pinkie Pie will be feeling better in a few days, that's not an immediate concern. The spell between her and Spike can be fixed anytime. She supposed those were the only real problems she had to report, all her other suspicions were mere conjecture.
While she was busy thinking about all the things she had slowly walked to her old house, or she should probably say her parents  house now. When she got there she looked at it for a minute. There wasn't any real rush, and she was really tired after that walk.
Without much more consideration, she went in to surprise her parents, and ask for a place to stay for the night. They were of course thrilled to see their little girl after all this time, and were more than willing to let her stay in her old room for the night.
As she laid Spike down on the bed next to her, she couldn't help but feel at home again. She liked having so many friends in Ponyville, but this room, in this house, here in Canterlot, this will always be her home. Those were her last thoughts before she drifted off to sleep.
> Chapter Two: “The Truth”
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Two: “The Truth”
Twilight awoke with a start. She had that strange feeling again, just like the one on the train, but even stronger this time. “Spike?! Did you feel that?!”
After a moment of silence. Twilight looked down at Spike still asleep next to her. She shook him gently. “Spike!” She shook him harder. “SPIKE!”
He remained fast asleep, despite her best efforts. Frustrated she got up to go eat breakfast. Her mother was already fixing, somehow she always knew exactly when Twilight would wake up. “Morning honey, sleep well?”
“Right up until the end, how about you?”
“Oh I slept fairly well, thanks for asking.” While she was talking she flipped the pancakes she was making into the air magically. As the semisolid batter fell it missed the pan and went all over the stove. “Oopsy daisy. I haven't messed that up since I was a little filly, must be getting old.”
Twilight moved over to help. But her mom held up her hoof. “Now don't you dare lift a hoof to help me missy, your the guest here, this is my mess. I'll fix you some more.”
“That's all right mom, I really do need to see Celestia, so how about when I get back, OK?”
“OK dear, we'll be awaitin for ya.”
She went back to her room to get Spike. “SPIKE! WAKE UP!” She yelled quite loud.
Spike didn't budge. He was completely asleep. Twilight gave up and went to see Celestia without him. If he woke up mom would take care of him.
She trotted into the streets, heading for the castle. It was about midday, Twilight had slept pretty late. The streets were mildly busy, packed with mostly unicorns, as was standard of Canterlot. There was a lot of chatter, but nothing unusual for that time of day. Suddenly Twilight looked up, she had got that strange feeling again. This time it seemed like she wasn't the only one. A hush fell over the crowds.  Everyone on the streets got quiet, most stopped talking entirely. After a second the noise began again as if nothing had happened. Twilight knew such phenomenon to happen occasionally, but in combination with such a strange sensation she kept feeling, she was beginning to get worried.
She quickened her pace towards the castle. Once there she made her way to Celestia's throne, to find Luna there sleeping. “Princess Luna?”
Luna opened her eyes to see who had addressed her. “Twilight Sparkle? This is certainly a surprise, to what do we owe the honor?”
“I have come to speak with Celestia, it seems that I cannot send her letters for some reason, and I need to speak with her.”
Luna's head drooped a little. “Ah, we see. Sister has been busy lately. You may find her in her room pacing.”
“Pacing? Is she worried about something?”
“Perhaps you may get a sane answer from her. She will not tell us in a rational manner what is wrong with her.”
“Thank you, I'll see what I can do.”
Twilight made her way to Celestia's room. She knocked lightly. From inside the room Celestia's voice came quick, and slightly shrill. “What is it?”
Twilight swallowed a bit. She had never dealt with Celestia in such a mood, and didn't know how to handle this, but she needed to speak with her. “Princess? It's me Twilight.”
“Twilight?” Her voice became more calm, but also slightly confused. “Why are you here?”
“I need to speak with you about some strange events that have been happening.”
Celestia quickly opened the door and looked down at her. “Come in and tell me everything.” She said in a hurried tone.
Twilight walked in and looked at Celestia. “Well at first...” Twilight stopped short as she saw Celestia shudder violently. “Princess are you...” before she could finish the strange feeling once again hit her, this time violently enough to make her shake much like Celestia just had.
“Twilight? You can feel it too?”
“Yes, what is 'it'?”
“This is not good, if your kind can already feel it, then...” She trailed off and looked up, obviously in both deep distress and thought.
“Please Princess, tell me what is going on.”
Celestia looked down at Twilight again, as if suddenly remembering she was there. “Right, uh, that's hard to explain. Um... this is so much harder live...”
“Live?” Twilight asked curiously.
Celestia practically bit her tongue. She had obviously said something she was not supposed to have said. “I meant... oh I'm very bad at this.” Celestia was becoming increasingly more fidgety, and was speaking in a more and more rushed tone, not like her normal speaking voice at all. “You know what? There's no time to explain, we need to get to Discord's statue immediately.”
“Discord? Is he behind all of this?”
“Hmm, uh yeah, of course!”
Twilight was feeling quite uneasy about the way the Princess was behaving. She didn't sound anything like herself by the end of the conversation. What could be so wrong as to make her loose her calm like this? Celestia turned and began to walk towards the grounds where Discord's statue was kept, Twilight followed close behind her, not knowing what else to do she remained silent as they walked there.
Once they got there Celestia looked around to see if anyone else was there. It seemed to be only her, Twilight, and the statue of Discord. She looked up at the statue and hesitantly said. “We have a problem.”
Twilight looked at her. “What do you...” She was cut off by Celestia raising her hoof up.
“Not you.” She looked back at the statue. “Can you here me old man? We have a problem down here!”
They both stood there in silence looking at the statue. Twilight was completely confused and was about to ask what Celestia was talking about, and maybe who to, when Celestia let out an angry grunt. “Kayson, get out here right now! This isn't the time for your games.”
Suddenly the statue of Discord animated. “Nya, what are you doing? Not in front of her!”
“We have bigger concerns right now.”
“Bigger concerns? What are you...” Discord paused and his eyes grew wide. “OH NO! No! NO! NO! Has it already been twenty? This isn't good, why didn't you do something sooner? Where is Siya?” Discord piled these questions one right after another, not giving Celestia anytime to answer any one question.
“Look I'm sorry, it snuck up on me too, and Siya is the biggest problem we have.”
“What do you mean? Is she in one of her moods again? Now isn't the time.” Discord looked over at Twilight. “And still what is SHE doing here? We don't have time to deal with them.”
Twilight began to open her mouth to protest, but Celestia jumped in first. “I'm afraid we might need her, to undo this massive mess I've gotten us into.”
“What have you done?” Discord asked very cautiously.
“Well, one ago, she got into one of her moods, and so I sent her to the moon to be funny. When she got back she was more than a little angry with me. So I had some of them.” Celestia motioned to Twilight. “Use the fail safe again on her, thinking it would do something like it did before, but uh...”
Discord eyes grew wide again. “Oh NO! You didn't get her sent out did you? Or locked out. Please tell me she is still in reach.”
Celestia bowed her head sheepishly. “Sorta, her persona took over, and she hasn't been back since. At first I thought she was having a laugh at me, but then... I'm not sure why she wouldn't have come back to fix this, she wouldn't do that in spite, so something is wrong.”
At this point Twilight was completely lost, and couldn't take listening to this nonsensical chatter anymore. “I AM TOTALLY LOST! Can one of you please tell me what's going on here?”
Discord and Celestia both looked down at her in surprise. Discord then looked back at Celestia. “Are you telling me that you think you need her to fix this, and you haven't told her a thing about it yet?”
Celestia looked at Twilight apologetically. “I'm sorry, I'm just so bad with words, I wouldn't know how to begin to explain it all.”
Discord stepped forward. “Then allow me, my name is Kayson, I'm the programmer.”
Twilight blinked in confusion. “What do you mean 'programmer'?”
“Well you see, what you see, your entire world, it was made by three people. Myself, the person responsible for most of the physics and inner workings of this place, Nya here,” he motioned to Celestia, “whom is responsible for the majority of the living creatures, and most of the 'magic' that happens, and finally there's Siya, the one you know as Luna, who is the genius who designed the machine that keeps all this running.”
Twilight was dumb struck. She didn't know what to think or believe. She turned to Celestia, her mentor, the only one who she trusted to give her the truth. Celestia nodded, silently confirming everything Discord had just said. Still looking at Celestia Twilight's only question she could force out was, “Your name is Nya?”
Celestia blushed slightly. “Yes, we three have changed names many times in the last twenty, but that is my true name yes.”
“What do you mean by 'the last twenty'?”
Kayson answered. “We live for so long, we don't count in years, we count in thousands of years. This place has existed for twenty thousand years now, evidenced by the current breakdown we are facing.”
Once again dumbstruck, Twilight sat there and stared in disbelief at Kayson. He nodded slightly. “Yeah, that's about the reaction I expected. Think I should tell her how old I am?”
Celestia chuckled slightly. “Far too old to brag old man.”
“What? The oldest living sentient being is too old for ya?”
They both began laughing at that joke. Twilight hardly blinked the entire time. She still was having trouble understanding what was going on. “So the three of you created the world?”
Nya recovered from her laughing fit first. “No dear, we created this dimension, it was the only way we could escape.”
“Escape?”
Kayson quickly interjected. “Nya, I don't think it's such a good idea to tell them about before.”
“What harm could it do? They are in just as much danger as we are by now.”
Kayson looked at Twilight for a moment pondering that thought. “I don't know, it's just this is the first time we have ever broken character like this. It's been a full twenty and we have yet to break character until now.”
Twilight was slowly loosing hope that either of them would start making sense at this point. How can they just create a dimension, and what did they mean, 'breaking character'?
Nya nodded. “I know it feels weird, trust me, I'm not used to having to do it all live. I'm so bad at my character that I can't really do it live.”
Twilight would have gotten frustrated, if she thought it would do any good. Obviously these two were going to take there time getting reacquainted, regardless of how dangerous the pending doom apparently was. What did she mean by live?
Kayson looked at Twilight, whose agitation was beginning to show on her face. “Oh right, she isn't one of us, she gets impatient easy. Alright calm down little one we'll explain. Where we came from, well let's just say the universe was getting old. I mean it was ancient. The whole thing was slowly collapsing in on itself. There weren’t many of us left, sentients that is, but what few of us were left were bound and determined to stay alive. Our ancestors had long ago chose to abandon physical bodies, and for the most part physical things in general. But somewhere far off in the corner of the universe, the three of us, and roughly twenty others, began work on Siya's master piece. She had come up with a machine to stave off the end of our universe, a way to keep the forces of time and entropy at bay, indefinitely. So we all began to work on it. The machine itself is more complicated than any of us could possibly understand, only the raw brilliance of Siya in her true form could understand it in all of its complexity. While they were completing work on its physical design however, Nya and myself began work on the coding, the internal mechanisms of how the worlds would function. We pulled from near limitless volumes of information, both factual and fictional that our ancestors had left behind, in an effort to create the perfect world. Of our many designs we all voted on this one as the best. All twenty thee of us began living in our new world and calling it home. It only took the first five for most of the others to decide to end it. They were not used to being bound to physical bodies, and this existence did not allow for them to make leave by any means other than deletion. After fifteen, there were only the three major players left. The creator, the designer, and the programmer, all living eternally for no real purpose but living. Now, at the twenty mark, we are faced with a crisis. The machine is out of chordal alignment. The entire structure is fluctuating out of existence, and the only one who knows how to fix it is in stasis.... or dead... or something...”
Twilight looked at him for a few moments. She was starting to get a handle on everything they had been saying, and was starting to understand the dire situation at hand. “But Luna, I mean Siya, is just fine, I talked to her before coming to see you Prin... I mean Nya.”
Nya looked at her. “No what you saw and spoke with was her persona, what takes over our bodies if we decide to be something else for a while. She would have already been here to fix the machine if she was awake. But it seems like the fail safe has put her to sleep.”
“By fail safe do you mean the Elements of Harmony?”
“Yes indeed, those were created by Kayson as an insurance policy in case something happened to one of us. They have the power to alter several setting in the code, but are not as powerful if just one person is using them.”
“Why is Dis... I mean Kayson able to break free from the stone?”
“Because you trapped is body, not him, we are able to escape to other bodies and let our personas do the work for us. Kayson lets us trap him with the Elements so that people respect us, and the power of the Elements. But if we used them on him for real, he would be in the condition Siya is in right now.”
“So us using the Elements on Discord was just a show?”
Nya blushed once more. “Sorry.”
Kayson laughed. “I thought you would be more concerned about the fact that you don’t actually exist.”
Twilight looked at him slyly. “You said that there was no more universe out there, so if here is all that is left, then I exist just as much as you do.”
Kayson clapped. “Clever girl, you have me there, but I digress. That's enough of a history lesson, it's time we get down to business, Nya, what's the plan?”
Nya looked confident. “Well between the three of us, we should be able to undue whatever has been done to Siya with the fail safe.”
Kayson looked skeptical. “I'm not so sure Nya, the six of them are not that bad at their use. Depending on what has been done, and how long ago it was done, we may not be able to undo it properly.”
“Any better ideas old man?”
“Is this localized? We could always port to another setup?”
“Even if the whole machine isn't collapsing it will eventually, we need Siya back, and this is the only world we would probably remember what the fail safe looked like.”
“OK I get it, so where is it?”
“Not far from here, come on.”
They all three walked to Celestia's throne room where Luna was siting. When they walked in Luna jumped up immediately. “Discord you fiend, how hath you been freed from your prison?”
Nya put her hoof to her forehead. She had totally forgot about Luna. How was she going to explain this? “Sister wait, you see this isn't Discord its uh...” She trailed off.
Twilight jumped in to save the day. “Its an actor, he is playing Discord in an upcoming play. I'm here to help with the magical costume. It's pretty good, huh?”
Luna looked between the three of them in turn. “Yes, most impressive costume, we were getting ready to fight. Sister, are you feeling better?”
Nya looked at her nervously. It was quite apparent that she wasn't used to not having her persona take care of the talking for her. “Uh, yes dear sister. Thank you for taking over for me for the day, everything's fine now, you may rest.”
Luna gave her a very curious look. She wasn't quite sure how to interpret the odd behavior from her sister. “Very well, we shall take our leave, take care sister.”
After Luna had left the room Nya relaxed. “Well that was close.”
Kayson laughed. “What would she have done? Honestly between the two of us her persona wouldn't stand a chance.”
Nya looked at him with a glare. “I wouldn't trust it. With the machine's breakdown messing with standard magic, and with the fail safe having altered her, there is no telling how her powers would compare to ours.”
Kayson laughed again. “You know I don't do magic, I just change the code.”
Nya shook her head slightly. “All the more reason I wouldn't trust your 'power' in a fight.”
Twilight was loosing her patience with them at this point. “Would you two focus? We have a crisis here!”
They both looked mildly embarrassed. “Shes right, lets get the fail safe and hurry along.” Nya said.
They all three went on there way to the room where the Elements of Harmony were kept. Nya opened the lock and pulled out the box that contained them. Inside there were six small gems of varying colors.
Twilight got a concerned look on her face. “Oh no!”
Nya looked at her curiosly for a moment, then realized what she was thinking. “Oh don't worry, I expected them to shift back down to a less complex form. They probably did that to conserve what space they could. The whole machine is probably doing that all over.”
Kayson stepped in. “It will probably finish reverting everything to normal physics in just a few more days.”
“Normal physics?”
“Well yeah, magic is our addition to this world, it didn't exist in our universe.”
Twilight quivered slightly at the thought of no magic. Nya grabbed the gems and shoved two into each persons hand. “Alright, let's get this started.”
Kayson nodded and looked up. “Requesting level four override of local reality field, authority FS3, user codes KS and SY.”
All around them became solid black, and it was suddenly just them and the gems hovering in nothingness. Kayson spoke again. “Procedural call, access use records of all fail safe activity.”
Sudenly all around them were what looked to be videos showing all the times the Elements had been used by Twilight and her friends, multiple times by Celestia and Luna, and several instaces that Twilight couldn't make out. Kayson looked around until he saw the one of them using the Elements on Nightmare Moon. He pointed up to it. “That one I assume?”
Nya looked up to it. “That looks right.”
Kayson pointed to it. “Call instance number.”
A female voice came from no discernible direction. “Instance number four, seven, nine.”
“Access debug for instance four, seven, nine.”
Suddenly they were surrounded by millions of words and symbols, several of which Twilight had never seen, and had no idea how to interpret. Kayson began scanning through the text visually. He read at a rate that Twilight could not possibly keep up with. “This isn't good.”
Nya, knowing better to have even tried to scan through the lines of code looked at Kayson. “What, what's the problem?”
“Nya, I don't know how to tell you this, but I think Siya is dead.”
Nya got a tearful expression for a moment, but it quickly turned to one of rage. “NO, that can't be! Show me, now!”
Kayson looked back at the code. “Focus between lines seven, nine, eight, three and  seven, nine, eight, seven.”
Sudenly most of the millions of words and symbols disappeared, and only a few hundred were left. Nya looked at it closely.  “What does it mean corrupted?!”
She looked at Kayson anger showing. “How can she be corrupted?”
Kayson hung his head. “I'm afraid that the misalignment was starting to show as early as back then, and I think she got unlucky when this happened.”
“UNLUCKY? SHE IS DEAD KAYSON!”
“Focus Nya, we need to fix the machine, then we can try to get Siya back.”
Nya's head hung low. “We can't fix the machine without her, and there isn't enough time to try anything if she is totally corrupted. Face it Kayson, this is the end.”
Kayson was still staring at the wall of text before them. When suddenly he got a smile. “Wait! Look! It was mostly personality damage, most of her memories are still in tact, we can still pull this off!”
Nya looked at the code again, and her eyes lit up. “You're right! But wait, we can't force right a persona, we would need a foregrounder that doesn't run a persona.”
Kayson looked at her as if she was stupid, then pointed to Twilight. Nya turned and looked at Twilight with a confused look. “Wait, she is a balance mechanic? How, I mean she's powerful and all, but an actual balance mechanic?”
“All of her friends are Nya, they all have some of the most complex interactions of any entity other than us, and believe me they come close, look, call code for entity ID Twilight Sparkle in local field.”
Suddenly a new set of text appeared. This time there were not millions of characters, there were billions. Twilight stared in wonder at the huge wall of text. “That is... me?”
Nya looked stunned. “I never thought... that is insanely complex, we never built something that complex, our personas aren't that advanced.”
“WE didn't, the machine has. The beings it has been putting out have been becoming more and more complex, that is what I told it to do. I think now you can see that a full twenty has given it time to make some serious programs.”
Still staring up at the huge line of code Nya looked at Twilight. “Do you understand what we are planning?”
Twilight shook her head lightly. “No I don't”
“We have Siyas memory, and even her genius, just not her personality. Under normal conditions I would just consider her lost and move on, but we need her. We want you to take her memories and help us fix the machine.”
Twilight looked at her, unsure of what to do. “Is there a choice?” She asked meekly.
Nya looked at her with a sad expression. “I wish I could tell you there was, but the choice is either say yes, or end everything.”
Twilight swallowed. “Then I guess I'm ready.”
> Chapter Three: “Learning Everything”
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Three: “Learning Everything”
Kayson began work at a furious pace. He wasn't talking or moving. He had his eyes shut. All around them huge streams of text was pouring out, cascading in and out of their vision, faster than Twilight could keep up with. She looked over at Nya who was staring off into the distance, not even bothering to look at the endless amount of code being created by Kayson. Twilight cleared her throat. “So the Celestia I know isn't real?”
Nya looked at her, obviously trying to hide her grief. “That depends on your definition of real I suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
“I created that image, that personality, to make me feel important. I wanted people to look up to me, to do what I said because I was me. Honestly, most of the time I let it do the work. How could I possibly beat something designed to command respect? In the end I was more of a spectator then an actual player.”
“So you didn't do most of the things that I have done with the Princess, most of it was actually another program?”
“Don't say program with such disgust, we are all programs now. You have always been a program. Sorry if I have ruined your life, but yeah she is actually pretty simple, albeit loving.”
“When you brought up my code earlier it was huge, how does that compare to Celestia's?”
Nya tried not to laugh. “Think about a million times simpler, Celestia's code is no more than a few hundred thousand lines.”
Twilight stopped and thought about that for a moment. She was infinitely more complex than the person she had looked up to her whole life. Celestia almost didn't exist. “Will I be nothing more than a persona after this is over?”
Nya looked at her. “No, you'll be a god.”
Twilight blinked, not expecting that answer. “What?”
“Siya knew everything about the machine, Kayson and I may have done most of the programming, but she could shut it all down on a whim, and we couldn't have stopped her. We don't understand how it works physically, we can't comprehend how it can stave off the collapse of the universe. But here in a few hours, you will.”
“How old are you?”
Nya blinked, not having been asked that in a very long time. “Well... seventy four now I suppose, or is it seventy five?”
Kayson stopped for a moment and looked at them. “Would you two stop, I'm trying to save us all here.”
They both went silent and he closed his eyes. “Your seventy nine by the way.”
Nya got a funny look. She didn't think he had kept such good track.
After several minutes of silence Twilight curiosity got the better of her. “So I will still be me? I won't become just another Siya?”
Nya didn't look at her. “No... Siya is gone... all that we have left is her memories now.”
Twilight could here the trembling in her voice. She wasn't sure if she should just stay quiet or try to console her, but before she had time to decide, Kayson finished. “Alright! It's ready!”
Twilight looked at him. “Is this going to hurt?”
Kayson looked at her with a bemused expression. “Not physically.”
Twilight swallowed. “Do it.”
“Commence procedure!”
Twilight didn't feel anything at first. Then she started to notice the memories that were flooding in. At first they seemed random and disconnected, but it wasn't long before she was experiencing thousands of years of memories at once. Twilight screamed and fell to the ground. The flood of memories wouldn't stop. She felt like she was going to lose consciousness, but something wouldn't let her. She wished she could call out to ask Kayson to stop this, but she couldn't move. She understood what he meant now. There was no physical pain, but to experience all of these memories was agonizing. Every sad moment Siya had ever experienced, and every accomplishment that made her feel good, all at once. The emotional pain was unbearable.
As quickly as the wave of memories had poured into her head, they stopped. She laid there on the floor, gather her thought, and Siya's. Several seconds passed and then Nya asked. “Are you alright?”
Twilight stood up and looked her directly in the eyes. “I'll deal with you later.” She looked up. “Privilege escalation, omega protocols.”
The female voice once again came form nowhere. “Access of level five privileges reserved for user ID Siya.”
“Override locking mechanisms on the grounds of chordal anomalies.”
There was a brief pause. “Granted.”
Twilight closed her eyes and began to focus. There was a lot to do, and the faster she got it done the less damage she would have to clean up later. “Execute rearrangement protocol six.” In front of them appeared a large cluster of millions of glowing blue orbs, all of which began moving around to form a different pattern. “Sub class six, seventeen, and thirty two slate for deletion.”
Kayson jumped forward. “Wait what are you doing?”
She looked at him coldly. “Kayson, we aren't just programs any more, we are as complex as you, we have every right to live, no more restraints, and no more personas.”
Kayson wanted to argue, but he knew it would do no good. Twilight looked back at the floating blue spheres. “Check for consistency in cluster formations.” Hundreds of the spheres turned yellow, and six of them turned red. “Force reset all lightly damaged regions to original states.” The yellow spheres turned white. “Run selected regions to match current dating.” After several seconds the white spheres turned blue to match the majority. “Recheck consistency in formations.” Nothing changed. “Force reset all heavily damaged worlds to original states with default code assumed for missing regions.”
The voice spoke again. “Console access to region denied, locked from inside.”
Twilight blinked in confusion. “Display locked regions.” All six of the red spheres turned green. “What in the... level five override, disengage all region locks.”
“Error,  access of level five privileges reserved for user ID Siya.”
“Override locking mechanisms on the grounds of chordal anomalies.”
There was another momentary pause. “Denied, no chordal anomalies exist, terminating session.”
The three of them were once again in the palace, Nya and Kayson looked at Twilight questioningly. Kayson asked first. “What in the world was that?”
“We have an error in six regions that are some how locked from being remotely interfered with.”
Nya looked concerned. “Is there anything we can do about that?”
Twilight nodded, “Yeah, go in and fix it ourselves.”
“Is the machine OK, is it fixed?”
“For the next twenty thousand years anyway.”
Kayson looked at her, well then my job is done, I'll go return this body to stone.” At that he disappeared.”
Twilight looked at Nya. “You won't help me either will you?”
Nya shook her head. “My sister's memories has taught you a lot about me huh?”
Twilight shook her head. “More than I needed to know, go ahead, I'll clean up this mess.”
Nya ran off. Nya was never a fighter, she hated conflict. Whatever was going on in the six locked regions, you could bet there was going to be a fight.
Twilight Concentrated hard and found the nearest of the locked regions to her current one. She ported to it.
She suddenly found herself on a long beach. Both ways she looked the beach stretched for what seemed like forever. The waves were steadily crashing into the beach side. Laid on two beach towels near her was Discord and Pinkie Pie. Both were laying back and seemingly tanning. When Twilight noticed them, Pinkie Pie raised up her head and looked at her. “Well it's about time! I've been waiting for you for a while. Boy do you have a mess to clean up.”