"Good morning, Dancer."

//Oh, good morning, Twilight!// the virtual pony replied. //Did you sleep well?//

"More or less," the unicorn replied. "I just wish I knew what happened to my Smarty-Pants doll after..." She sighed. "Oh well. That old doll's been at the center of chaotic episodes that completely disrupted Ponyville twice now. It's probably for the best if she's lost..."

Dancer tilted her head. //But she was important to you, right?//

"She's just an old rag doll," Twilight said dismissively. "So, what have you been up to?"

//I've been trying to find out more about this world,// Dancer replied. //It's been difficult, because a lot of the data sectors in the supercomputer appear to be corrupted.// She frowned. //Some of what I have found is puzzling.//

"Oh?"

//I...don't think I had a virtual form until you turned on the supercomputer,// Dancer replied. //It's as if I was formatted as a pony when the system started up. And I think...whoever created the computer, and this world...wasn't a pony.//

"Wasn't a pony? What do you mean?"

//I'm not sure. Some of the data I've extracted references things that make no sense. I can't explain it,// Dancer said, shaking her head. //And like I said, the entire memory core here is a complete mess. I do know two things, though.

//There IS something else in here with me. When you turned on the supercomputer, it woke up.//

"Yeah, we kinda figured that out."

//The other thing,// Dancer continued, //is that somepony left a message. It's heavily encrypted. I've started decoding it but it might take most of the day.//

"Be sure to let me know when it's done," Twilight said. "Anything we can learn about all this will help. Especially if we're expecting any more incidents like yesterday..."

//In the meantime, let me tell you what I do know...//

The walls of the cottage shook as the throb of pounding bass pulsed through the floor. A unicorn wearing purple shades nodded her head in time with the beat as she stood behind a turntable. After what the neighbors would say was far too long, the noise level tapered off. Still nodding and softly beatboxing to herself, the mare trotted up the stairs from the basement to the living room, then headed to the bathroom to drop something other than sick beats.

In the empty, quiet basement studio, a shadowy mist seeped up out of the very foundation, oozing up the cables snaking from the turntable, and settled into the still-spinning record. As it revolved, the faint, staticy image of an eerie concentric eye superimposed itself onto the record...

//There are five sectors,// Dancer said as a wireframe map appeared on the right-hand screen, displaying four detailed, differently-colored sectors arrayed around a black sphere adorned with the same eye symbol that had been on the monsters that had attacked her. //Desert, mountain, forest, and polar...and one that doesn't appear to be accessible. I think there used to be a holographic world map of Lyocolt, but...// She frowned. //It looks like a lot more hardware is supposed to be connected to the supercomputer than actually is.//

"I've got...four screens, four scanners, and a control board," Twilight said.

//Hmm...yes, you're definitely missing some components.// Dancer shrugged. //I don't think it really matters. I mean, you can talk to me and send your friends into Lyocolt...//

"I'd like to make the next trip over, actually," Twilight said. "It'll be easier for me to understand what's going on if I'm right there where it's all happening."

//Alright.// Dancer tapped her chin with a hoof. //Also, I'm trying to figure out why your friends couldn't access the towers. According to my data, anything except those monsters should be able to enter towers.//

"Maybe they've been sealed somehow?" Twilight suggested. "Somepony fixed them so nopony but you can get in?"

//Possibly,// Dancer replied. //I'll look into it. Now, let me explain some of the finer points of what you can do from your end...//

An hour or so before lunchtime, Vinyl Scratch was chilling out on the living room sofa, flipping through a trade magazine and sipping a cold glass of asparagus juice. Her roommate, the snooty and somewhat uptight cellist Octavia, trotted into the room, looking rather cross.

"Scratch? How many times have I asked you not to leave your infernal pounding noise running when you're not in your studio?"

The unicorn blinked. "Huh?"

It took her a moment to realize the floor was vibrating.

"That's weird," Scratch muttered, setting aside her magazine. "I coulda SWORN I turned it off..."

"Well, you didn't," Octavia said sniffily.

Scratch rolled her eyes. "Pop a gasket, why dontcha? I'll crank it down. Sheesh."

Twilight's friends piled into the library after lunch; the six mares and Spike descended into the basement lab. The unicorn had explained that Digital Dancer had new information for all of them about the supercomputer.

//The message has finished decoding,// Dancer informed them once they had all taken positions around the control screens. //It's a video recording...I'll play it now.//

A flickering video image appeared of a creature the likes of which the ponies present had never seen. Bipedal, with pale, hairless ivory skin and two arms. A thick, not quite shoulder-length mane of pinkish-silver hair, meticulously styled. Sharp green eyes, lined ever so slightly as though with age, magnified by silver-rimmed spectacles perched on an impossibly small nose, which rested above a flat, thin-lipped mouth that, like the eyes, seemed to be lined with age. This being was clad in a dark rose-pink sweater and a maroon skirt, over which it wore a pristine white lab coat.

//Greetings,// the strange creature spoke in a feminine voice that, to the ears of those present, seemed somewhat aged, yet still firm and clear. //If you are viewing this message, then a terrible mistake has been made.

//My name is Dr. Aelita Belpois. Please listen carefully; it is imperative that you, who have somehow reactivated the supercomputer, are made to fully understand the danger you and everyone you know and love are now in. For in reactivating the supercomputer, you have almost certainly reawakened the most dangerous virtual entity in the history of artificial intelligence.

//By the time you discover this message, it will almost certainly already be too late...XANA is likely already awake, and won't rest until you are dead.

//XANA is a multi-agent artificially intelligent entity with the capability of manifesting and controlling digital aspects in the physical world. In order to do so, XANA must activate the command towers located within the virtual world that resides inside the supercomputer. The computer is unique in that it generates a form of energy which can manipulate reality. XANA uses the towers to take control of this capability, and uses it to attack the real world.

//In the past, we have been able to stop XANA on several occasions, but despite our best efforts, we have been unable to completely destroy him. We are also unable to dismantle or destroy the supercomputer itself, for reasons which are far too technical and complicated to explain here. Our final, desperate act was to place the supercomputer aboard a missile and launch it into a collapsing wormhole. According to my husband, the odds of the supercomputer surviving this journey, let alone ending up anywhere that life exists, are impossibly small, but having spent much of our lives fighting XANA, we were unwilling to take any chances.

//We have programmed a guardian intelligence, created from my own personality engrams, to serve as a monitor and defensive weapon against XANA. In the event XANA awakens, this guardian must be safely delivered to any activated towers—towers that have turned red—and deactivate them.

//You must be extremely careful to avoid allowing the guardian program to be destroyed by XANA's monsters. You must also take care to work swiftly, because any damage XANA causes in the real world will be irreversible. We were forced to lock out the 'Return to the Past' program because using it increases XANA's power. Whatever you do, DO NOT attempt to unseal this program! It will only make fighting XANA that much more difficult for you.

//I wish you the best of luck, and I am deeply sorry that this burden has now fallen upon you.//

The recording faded to static. Twilight looked around at her grim-faced, horror-stricken friends, and at the virtual visage of Digital Dancer. Her ears drooped. "I...I'm sorry, everypony. This...this is all my fault..."

"There's no way you coulda known, Twilight," Dash said.

"Yes...please do not blame yourself. Why, we have dealt with forces which threatened to destroy Equestria before. We can certainly do so once again!" Rarity added.

"Yeah! This XANA thingie's no match for our friendship!" Pinkie chimed in.

"It...it couldn't possibly be worse than Discord..." Fluttershy said quietly.

And then the entire library started to shake.

"SCRATCH! TURN. IT. DOWN!!"

"I can't! It's stuck! I—AAAAAH!!"

Vinyl Scratch collapsed to the floor of her studio, blood trickling from her ears. Upstairs, a similar fate had befallen Octavia.

The possessed sound studio cranked the bass even higher.

Twilight's ear twitched. "Okay, I've TRIED to be nice about that mare's obnoxious music, but this is the last straw..."

"Oh, come on, Twilight," Pinkie said. "Scratchy's music rocks! Well, no, it's more like it...wubs?"

"Wubs me th' wrong way, y'mean," Applejack muttered.

"Yes, I'm most definitely not wubbing this," Rarity complained.

"Yyyyyyeah whenever you ponies are through making bad puns?" Spike said, digging in one ear with a claw.

//Everypony, listen!// Dancer said urgently. //I'm sensing pulsations—//

"We're ALL sensing pulsations," Twilight said through gritted teeth. "It's this mare who lives nearby, she's a DJ—"

//No, I mean evil pulsations,// the virtual mare clarified. //I think XANA's launched another attack...//

The purple unicorn groaned. "Wonderful." She shook her head. "Pinkie, Dash, you go deal with Vinyl Scratch. Applejack, Rarity, you're with me. Fluttershy, Spike...you'll have to work the scanners."

"Oh, no...I couldn't possibly..." Fluttershy said nervously.

"Would you rather go to Lyocolt and fight monsters?" Twilight asked.

The yellow pegasus let out a frightened squeak. "Well...when you put it that way..."

//Don't worry, I can talk you through it,// Dancer assured the timid mare.

"And do I get any say in the matter?" Rarity demanded snippily.

"No," Twilight replied curtly.

The white unicorn sighed theatrically. "Oh, very well then..."

//I've located the activated tower,// Dancer said. //It's in the desert sector.//

"We'll be right there," Twilight said.

As the two unicorns and Applejack stepped into the scanner tubes, Fluttershy perched herself nervously in front of the control board, while Spike put on the headset. "Oh my goodness," Fluttershy whispered. "So many buttons..."

"It's not that hard," Spike said. He pulled a roll of parchment out from underneath the control board. "See? Twilight wrote it all down just in case."

//And anything she missed, I can help you with.//

"Um...alright..." Fluttershy's eyes scanned the parchment. "O-okay...um...scanners on..." She began nervously pecking at the control board with her hooves.

//Set the transfer coordinates,// Dancer prompted.

"Coordinates set," Spike said after a moment of furious hunt-and-peck typing.

Fluttershy consulted Twilight's checklist, then began tapping controls clumsily with her hooves. "Transfer Applejack...transfer Twilight Sparkle...transfer Rarity..."

"Scanner Twilight," Spike said into the headset. "Scanner Applejack...scanner Rarity..."

Fluttershy's hoof mashed down on the Enter key. "Virtualization...I hope..."

The three mares landed lightly on the dusty brown digital terrain; Dancer was already waiting for them nearby.

"...okay now see, y'all don't look like some kinda rodeo clown out of mah worst nightmare," Applejack groused.

Twilight Sparkle was clad in a facsimile of the black spandex catsuit she had worn during the misadventure involving the Royal Canterlot Library and a time-travel spell. Green-tinted wraparound sunglasses covered her eyes, and a ninja sword was strapped to her flank. Rarity sported a tasteful, elegant black-and-gold karate gi.

"Oh, this IS rather nice," Rarity said, examining herself.

"Quickly, the tower's this way!" Dancer said, turning and trotting off down a narrow pass. The ground beneath them trembled; angry red ripples pulsed through the ground, moving in the direction the virtual mare was heading. The others quickly fell in behind her.

After several minutes of travel, Dancer suddenly skidded to a halt, rearing. "Stop, everypony!" she cried.

A gaping chasm stood between the four mares and the activated tower.

"Wonderful," Twilight said. "Now I wish I'd made Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash come with us."

"I forgot to tell you this," Dancer said, "but you really don't want to fall into chasms like this. If you do, you can't rematerialize in the real world—you'll be lost forever."

"No fallin', gotcha," Applejack replied. "So...any idea how we get across this here canyon?"

"I have an idea," Rarity said, as dozens of needles limned in a pale magical aura darted away from her, trailing strands of light. As the others watched, she started to sing while she worked.

"Step by step, putting it together...stitch by stitch, need to make it strong enough to walk on...I'm sewing...us a briiiiiiiiidge..."

And with a few minutes' work, she had done precisely that: constructed a stylish and sturdy virtual cloth bridge. The others stared at her as she trotted onto the plush fabric. She turned to face them. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

The others glanced at one another, shrugged, and followed her.

As they crossed the bridge, Dancer turned to Twilight. "Your friend is amazing," she said, "but...was it really necessary for her to sing?"

Twilight shrugged. "Sometimes the ponies around here just break into song for no apparent reason. You get used to it."

"SCRATCH! OPEN UP!" Dash yelled, pounding on the door.

"Maybe she can't hear us?" Pinkie suggested.

"No DUH, with all this noise," Dash replied. "Oh well, only one way in..." She flew back several feet from the door, then rammed it full-speed. The door gave way with a loud crash and a shower of splinters. The noise became almost unbearable. Dash futilely covered her ears with her hooves.

"Here," Pinkie said, passing her some earplugs. "I always keep earplugs stashed all over Ponyville. In case of earplug emergencies."

While Dash was inserting her earplugs, Pinkie rushed into the cottage. She reappeared just as Dash walked into the living room. "Omigoshomigosh! Dashie! They're out cold! Both of them! And I can't stop the music!"

Dash raced downstairs, observing the two unconscious mares. "Oh man, that can't be good." She trotted quickly over to the spinning turntables, studying them for a minute. She started turning knobs, then pulling loose cables. Nothing seemed to work; in fact, the music grew even louder, and Dash was thrown off her hooves.

As she stood up, she shared a glance with Pinkie, and they gathered up Scratch and Octavia and carried them upstairs and out of the cottage.

Once they were a safe distance from the horrific noise disturbance (and had drawn a crowd of onlookers), they removed their earplugs. "You think that XANA thingie is behind this?" Pinkie asked.

"I dunno, but it might be," the pegasus said. "We'd better get these two to the hospital."

"The tower's just ahead," Dancer said.

//Um...everypony?// Fluttershy said timidly. //I think there's...m-monsters...coming r-right at you...//

"We see 'em," Applejack said, skidding to a halt. "Ugly critters."

Three enormous, red, crab-like monsters, each with four long, spindly legs, blocked the path to the tower. They glared hatefully down at the four ponies with an array of glowing blue-white eyes. The now-familiar symbol of XANA was emblazoned across the tops of their shells.

The center crab fired a laser blast at Rarity; the ground at her feet briefly reverted to wireframe. "Really! How uncouth!"

"You need to attack their weak point!" Dancer said nervously, sidling to the edge of the path to take cover behind a large rock.

"An' just where th' hay is THAT?" Applejack asked.

"Only one way to find out," Twilight muttered. Her horn glowed, and her sword rose into the air, spun to face the giant enemy crabs, and flashed toward them at surprising speed. It glanced off the shell of the nearest crab, doing no appreciable damage and angling off to the right.

A forest of gleaming needles appeared around Rarity and flew at the crab which had shot at her. Two of them embedded themselves in the symbol on its shell; the monster flinched and shuddered, legs creaking and groaning as it stumbled.

//That's it!// Spike called. //The eye symbol on their shells is the weak point! It doesn't look like it, but Rarity just did massive damage!//

"Got it," Twilight said, eyes narrowed as she brought her sword around again. Dodging a laser blast that got entirely too close, she turned her sword and struck again. This time, it buried itself to the hilt in the XANA symbol on her target's shell; the crab twitched spastically for a moment before exploding into blue polygons.

Rarity's crab had recovered slightly, and taken a shot which actually hit the white unicorn. She scowled and hurled more magic needles at it. After four more hits, it joined its brother in oblivion.

Applejack, meanwhile, had taken three hits from the remaining crab as she tried to move into position to attack it. She leaped high into the air, twisted her body around, and rammed the horns on her ridiculous hat into the crab's weak spot. It dropped to the ground but failed to explode; an assist from Twilight finished it off.

"Okay, looks like the coast is clear!" Twilight said. "Dancer, hurry up and deactivate the tower!"

"Right!" Dancer replied, charging full-tilt at the side of the tower and phasing through.

The virtual mare trotted slowly toward the center of the floor; as she crossed each of the concentric rings, they lit up brightly, with an echoing digital chiming sound. Once she reached the center, she found herself lifted into the air; she tilted her head back, eyes closed, as she ascended to another level.

She landed gently on a floor identical to the one below; the rings here made the same pleasant echoing chime as she crossed them. When she reached the dot at the center of the circle, a holographic display appeared in midair before her. She reached out with a forehoof and tapped it. Her digital hoofprint pulsed brightly, before words appeared on the screen:

As soon as these words finished forming, the shimmering displays scaling the walls suddenly plunged violently downward. Somewhere at the base of the tower, a surge of energy erupted skyward...

The pounding dub music that had been shaking a large section of Ponyville abruptly cut off. Vinyl Scratch and Octavia had been rushed to the Ponyville Hospital, where Nurse Redheart had examined the two unconscious mares, and informed Pinkie and Dash that they'd make a full recovery in a few days. Relieved, the two ponies had returned to the library.

After sending a letter to Princess Celestia and doing some nice relaxing reading, Twilight paid Digital Dancer one last visit before tidying up the library and going to bed.

"I think I'm starting to understand more of what's going on here," Dancer said, studying the holoscreen.

//What do you mean? I thought Dr. Belpois' message explained everything pretty clearly.//

"Not entirely," the virtual mare replied. "I think XANA was originally imprisoned in the supercomputer, and then escaped...but somehow, was driven back into the supercomputer, which it looks like at some point he was trying to destroy from the inside. Now, though, it looks as though he's taken a different approach—he's sealed himself inside the core of Lyocolt and fortified it."

//Turning his former prison into a stronghold?// Twilight asked.

"Exactly."

//So that's why there's a barrier protecting it...//

"Which XANA probably created after Dr. Belpois tried getting rid of him by shooting the supercomputer into that wormhole."

The walls of the tower suddenly began to pulse an angry red. "What in the—?!" Dancer glanced wildly about, eyes wide as she reared in alarm.

The concentric symbol on on the floor changed from soft blue to bright red, and a holographic display flashed into being in the air before the virtual mare. She stared at it and gasped. "It...it can't be...!"

//What's wrong, Dancer? What's happening?// Twilight asked.

"It's XANA...he's...reconfiguring Lyocolt..."

//He's doing WHAT?!"//

"Reconfiguring..." Data began to fly across the holographic display rapidly as Digital Dancer ran her hooves across it, eyes darting from side to side as she frantically attempted to make sense of and, if possible, reverse whatever the malevolent virus was doing. After a few moments, she collapsed heavily to the floor, and the tower returned to its normal, serene blue.

//Did you stop XANA? What's happening?// Twilight asked nervously.

"I..." Dancer sighed. "I couldn't stop it. XANA is too powerful, and the program he executed was embedded in the virtual environment before I was even created."

//So...what did he do, exactly?//

"See for yourself," Dancer replied, absently reaching up and tapping a forehoof against the hovering screen.

On the screen to Twilight's right, the virtual map of Lyocolt and its five sectoors appeared once again. "This is Lyocolt as it was when you reactivated the supercomputer," the virtual mare explained. She tapped her screen again, and the map changed, exploding violently outward and reconfiguring itself into something completely unrecognizable, with multiple sectors and no sign whatsoever of the ominous black sphere.

//What the...?// the unicorn gasped, startled.

"This is Lyocolt as it exists now," Dancer said. "XANA has merged the existing virtual world with another virtual world he absorbed at some point in the past. There were five sectors; now there are ten."

//Ten sectors...//

"There are well over a dozen towers in each sector," Dancer continued. "With that many towers at his disposal, XANA...may be too powerful for anypony to stop."

//We'll stop him,// Twilight promised. //And maybe we can find a way to get you out of there and into our world.//

"I'd like that," Dancer said with a smile.

Previous file in memory: Chapter 2
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