The back alley exuded a putrid stench that made her lip curl. For a nanosec, she wished her body didn’t come equipped with a sense for smell at all.

Trash and refuse littered the press-crete, collected against the brick face of the walls in knee-deep drifts. If the city’s cleaning routines were still operating properly, it obviously had not been to this side of town in a while. The bright neon lights of the larger—populated—alleys and byways faded into an uneasy sort of half-darkness here, the utility lights that should illuminate the path all burned out or simply missing. Rats—at least she assumed they were rats or something genetically similar—moved in the deeper shadows cast by ancient rusted dumpsters and discarded bits of crumpled plasti-steel pieces of junked out vehicles. Dirty runoff water from the ever present springtime rains flowed in a sluggish stream down the middle of the alley and she was careful to not step in it as she ventured deeper into the underbelly of the city.

Twilight despised what Canterlot had become. The mountain it once perched on like some white and gold bird of paradise was gone. Reduced to a mere mound of its former self, all in the name of progress and convenience. It barely even registered as a rise in elevation; the city was so layered on top of it. Here near the old center of Canterlot, at least, she could see the sky now and then. The steel-grey clouds peeked between the buildings and sky-bridges that directed and ferried the city’s hundred million or so citizens around on their daily, pointless lives.

Twilight frowned, readjusting her thinking. Their lives were not pointless. Aimless perhaps, or simply lacking in a greater meaning. Still, she reminded herself not to look down on the ponies here. They were not intrinsically lesser than her. It was the greater sins of their society that held them back. She was not some higher being, god-like in her power and ability by comparison. No matter what others might like to say when they assumed nopony was listening. In truth, she was much more a dinosaur than these ponies that chose to live here as ponies just like them had chosen to do so for thousands upon thousands of years. It was their choice to either join the Enlightened or not. If not, then that was their choice, misguided thought it was.

Choice is a powerful thing. It was choice that led her now, in the dark, though a fetid alleyway to a place she had not seen with her own eyes in more than seven centuries.

Twilight rounded the corner at the end of the little alley and stopped just outside the beam of light cast by a partially functional sign. It hung low over a set of recessed doors, the old fixture flashing the words ‘Fortunes Told’ and ‘Harmonic Forecasts’ every few seconds. The doors themselves where closed and looked almost like real wood in the poor illumination, their heavy push plates and arcaic locks covered in corroding faux-brass. From the layout of the building, Twilight could tell they lead to a large sized lounge of sorts where visitors would interact with a holographic projection of the oracle, asking their questions and seeking meaning in their mundane lives. Between them a small kiosk made of blue painted plasti-steel stood guard with a thick plate of shatterproof, translucent crystal for a window. Behind the window, a dingy looking earth pony snored peacefully, oblivious to her stare and scans washing over the building.

Her clusters of bio-enhancements pinged the structure’s local network for a full diagnosis. Twilight used old, cleared credentials, from her last visit to Canterlot, for the access request. She didn’t actually need to make a formal request, but she suspected the building wouldn’t recognize the current set of protocols. There was also the slight possibility that forcing her way in might trigger older hard defenses she knew were buried under the faux-brick exterior. Defenses that would attempt to atomize her body before she could blink. She really didn’t fancy another walk back out here if she could avoid it.

The data stream told her everything was functioning within allowed parameters, if the energy consumption was a little high. It was the same standard info the building would give any other system that came snooping around for any reason. Twilight ignored the camouflage and tapped deeper, her enhancements slipping past the outdated security measures with ease. The second layers were where she needed to be careful what she touched. When she reached the real security armament, Twilight took her time disabling the disrupters and force nets until she was reasonable sure they would remain asleep. Only then did she dare reach for the deepest, most hidden systems and routines. There she stopped and passively absorbed the data, examining it for signs of corruption or degradation as it scrolled along her visual HUD. Anything more would be impolite.

The code showed its age. Twilight tsk’ed to herself, making notes for improvements to make to it later. It wasn’t surprising really, her own work was hundreds of iterations ahead of this, but it nagged at her that nopony had thought to make upgrades. It wasn’t like this was some sort of utility program, actual lives depended on it. She breathed a sigh of relief at the apparent lack of degeneration in the code. At least somepony or some subroutine was still doing its job.

Satisfied that everything seemed to be in order, Twilight shut down the tap to the data stream and walked up to the kiosk. She gave the pony inside a quick scan, confirming that he was a standard Earth Pony with only the minimal mandatory augmentations. He was still more flesh than circuitry, but at least the bio-enhancements he had were up to date. He had a standard configuration that connected him to local nets for communication and entertainment, and a few enhancements to his digestive and neural systems. She waited for his augments to wake him up, sending signals to his meat-brain that his augments had sensed her presence. She took a step back so that she would appear less threatening, watching the pony pick himself up from his deep slumber. She checked her social interaction protocol checklist on her HUD, stretching her lips into what she hoped was an appropriate smile as the stallion’s eyes fluttered open.

“I’m here to see the Oracle.” Twilight coughed her voice low. “Please.”

The pony blinked at her in sleepy incomprehension, wiping a bit of drool from his chin. He shook his head to clear it and tapped the button on his side of the plast-steel wall, a communication speaker buzzing to life. “What?”

“I’m here to see the Oracle.” Twilight repeated herself, a bit firmer this time, and stepped forward again so his organic eyes could see her clearly. “I can pay, I have credits.”

“We don’t take credits here.” The kiosk pony set his jaw, his tone becoming moderately aggressive. “It’s bits and bits only. We don’t take kindly to technocrat Enlightens or their cursed credits. Canterlot is better off without them.”

Twilight stood her ground. “I’m sure you have a fair point. But I really must speak with her. It’s terrible important and time is fleeting.” Her enhancements caught him sending out a call through the local communications node of the local net. It was tagged emergency and being routed for the authorities. They would make things far more complicated than they had to be, so she intercepted the call and sent the stallion’s bio-enhancements a false ‘received’ notification. She could see his shoulders relax microscopically as soon as she did.

“I have no bits, however. I’m sorry. Credits are easily redeemable for bits, sir. Perhaps we could come to some sort of agree—”

“I don’t care, filly! It’s bits or beat off!” He cut her off and stood, trying to loom over her from inside his tiny castle. “Whatever you came to ask, the Oracle ain’t speaking to an Enlightened. Why would she? Their future is doomed anyway.”

“I’m sorry, but you are wrong there. You don’t even know what your Oracle is or you wouldn’t say that to me of all ponies.” Twilight sighed, reminding herself again that it was choice that separated them. It was his choice to remain a slave to his organic needs. It was his choice to remain a member of a society grown stagnant and corrupt. Just as it was her choice to rise above that. It was her choices that gave all of equinity the option to have the power and lifespan once enjoyed only by alicorns.

Choice drove her to fix a mistake she’d made long ago. Years ago, those choices that a younger Twilight Sparkle had made chased away the one pony she still cared for. So, she made the choice that this innocent pony was going to walk home tonight, wherever that might be for him.

Twilight reached forward, the end of her hoof breaking apart into several mechanized grippers, and grabbed the kiosk wall. The plasti-steel screeched in protest, crunching under her hoof before the bolts and seals holding it failed under the greater pressure her heavily modified body produced. A large jagged piece of the material tore away from the rest of the kiosk’s frame, the shattered crystal plate window raining shards down to join the other refuse in the alleyway. The stallion shouted, falling back from the small stool he had been sitting on, his bio-enhancements firing out call after automated call for help. Twilight blocked them all.

“What the hay are you? I-I didn’t mean anything about that Enlightened comment, I swear!”

Twilight turned and tossed the ruining piece of wall aside like a foal’s plaything, her hoof reshaping itself as she put her weight back on it. “Your bigotry is understandable. You are indoctrinated from birth to rail against the inevitable evolution to a postphysical state.” She checked his expression and vitals against her social interaction protocol. He was scared, stressed by her actions and presence. She took a step forward, holding up her hoof in a calculated calming gesture.

“A p-postphysical?! Here?” He scrambled back, pushing himself into a back wall that was covered with old printouts and piled high with a few years’ worth of used fast food containers. “What do you want? Are you here to force me into joining? I swear I didn’t mean anything by those posts! It was just harmless trolling! I’m not a luddite!”

“No, I’m not on some sort of recruitment drive.” Twilight let her hoof drop. “We don’t do that sort of thing anymore. Joining the Enlightened is your choice. But all ponies will join us, eventually. I already told you why I am here. I am here to see the Oracle.” Twilight’s voice was calm, unstrained as she stepped into the kiosk over the upturned stool. “Please get out of my way. I do not wish to harm you.” She applied a smile to her face, checking her interaction protocol again to make sure it was more reassuring than psychotic. Whichever the specific effect it had on him, it got the stallion moving. He dove out of the kiosk and galloped into the night, leaving her behind.

Twilight didn’t bother watching him go and ripped the printouts off the wall with a sweep of her hoof. Under that was a layer of plaster and faux-brick which she brushed aside along with the used fast food containers. Behind that, her true prize laid, a molecularly reinforced metal bulkhead with a tiny slot for coded entry with a single data jack. Though it was faded, the bulkhead still had the faintest impression around the slot of a stylized sun.

Twilight moved closer and took a seat. Idly she noted a new wave of emergency calls going through the communications hub, but she did nothing to block them. The authorities could not stop her in time. She looked down and a similar slot in her chest to the one in front of her, opening and her neural interface node extended. The cable snaked through the air and jacked into the slot on the wall with a satisfyingly loud click. A moment later, Twilight felt a slight tug at her consciousness, leaving her body behind and reformed in a reality that was modeled after the ancient Canterlot of her birth. In front of her rose the mountain, taller here than it ever really was, and on its side sat Canterlot Castle, bright and shining in the immortal noonday sun.

Twilight smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like a very long time. The digital contruct of old Canterlot looked perfect, even to her trained eyes. She could sense the warped and twisted subspace that the construct existed in, the computer that ran it reaching beyond traditional dimensions and into that place just outside it. It took her back to the past, millennia old memories resurfacing of the conversation she’d had with Celestia about using the limitless nature of the ‘ethereal realm’ to house monstrous computers that would never work in normal space. To think it was the place she had been teleporting through all those centuries ago. The place where she had ascended to alicornhood. Now it was the place where all Enlightened ponies lived. In pocket worlds of their own, controlled by their minds, free from trivial concerns like aging and death and all because of her choices and the innovations they had led to.

Her hooves, flesh and blood so far as her mind could determine, clopped happily against the cobblestones as she headed for the castle and the pony she knew would be there. Maybe now she could say she was sorry and could come back into the fold, back into the embrace of those she still loved. It felt like ages since she had last spoken to Celestia, let alone seen the mare. In the early days they had worked hoof and hoof together, inseparable as they used their magic to tease out the deeper truths to reality. They leaded a cultural revolution as study of math and science overtook the traditional pursuits of magic. What was once barely understood ritual and superstitions became codified truths, laws that guided the universe. It was a wealth of knowledge never before guessed at and it was theirs to discover together.

Then, as all good things must, it came to an end. The rift between them started over small things. Disagreeances on how the project should proceed, on the best use of the technologies they were building, and the best way of enforcing cyberneticization among the general populace. Celestia was a proponent of letting time run its course and let the rest of the population come to realize the benefits of the bio-enhancements and then adopt them at their own pace.

Twilight slowed down as she neared the wide, open gates to the castle. Pennant flags flew from the towers high above, just as they had in the past, signifying Celestia was there. However, there were no other ponies there, just empty suits of guard armor that floated in place. She felt her smile slipping as she entered the courtyard, more of the bad memories welling up inside of her.

Eventually, they had broken up. No longer even able to carry on a conversation without it degrading into arguments and shouting matches, Twilight pulled away from Celestia. She believed that they, as a specie, were on the edge of a new stage in evolution. One that was under their control for once. Waiting for the public to willingly go along with it would take years, if not centuries. Even with all her efforts at education and displaying the benefits of becoming enhanced through cybernetics and then later nanoclusters implanted directly into a pony’s cellular structure, the turnover rate was dismal. Technology waited for no mare and if she wanted everypony to be on equal hooves, she would need them to accept it quickly and enmasse.

So the forcible recruitments started. Too many ponies saw the loss of their original bodies as soul shattering, the loss of their cutie marks as a loss of purpose. The old ghosts of Starlight Glimmer’s social experiments haunted and tainted the public’s perceptions, and if she were honest with herself, her early tactics could have been nicer. But she built her truly Enlightened society. Most of the converts were happy once they had had the time to explore their new abilities and compartmentalize the loss of their physical nature.

That was the final wedge, for her relationship with her old mentor. Celestia retreated, returned to the place she had called home for millennia before Twilight’s birth. Over the site where her throne room had once sat, she had her own subspace computer anchored. She opened her hooves to all those that fought against progress. A digital being of near-limitless power and knowledge come to guide these caveponies into a future that they could have had already. Overtime, her ‘wait and see’ outlook left her behind, regulating her to the role of a mystic. The ponies she guided didn’t even remember that she was a living creature, let alone the mythical princess of the sun. She was just an algorithm masquerading as an oracle.

And so their two stewarded cultures came to an uneasy stalemate. Normal ponies that added a few bio-enhancements to themselves for convenience and fun, and ponies that lived practically as digital gods and goddesses. For all the invention and progress that her Enlightened ponies came up with, Celestia’s outnumbered them millions to one and were the ones on the physical edge of pony expansion. Mistrust, racism and warring ideals kept them from anything less than a sociological cold war for the last thousand years.

Twilight lifted her head high as she approached the throne room of the castle. More of the empty guard armor floated here in the main hall, flanking her on both sides. Their empty helms turning as she passed, watching her like ghosts. Celestia knew she was here, and was playing their meeting out, but if it was for old times’ sake or just to be mysterious, Twilight wasn’t certain. At least she would have dignity in her offering of a proverbial olive branch. She pushed open the big double doors slowly, letting her hooves feel the simulated wood grain and chase away her disbelief. This was Canterlot. She was Twilight Sparkle and she had come to see the Princess.