Catalyst 2.0: Purity (pt1)

>Anticipation.  Such a luscious intoxication.  It suffocated the urge for restraint, something so very welcome in the face of the current, and stifling events.
>Those savory, silent moments.  Sharing stares, intense only amidst her partner.  Filled with splendor and, for her, a violent and personal fancy.
>It was positively magnificent.
>Rainbow was in no condition for it though.  She had been integrated with the male chassis for quite a while.
>It was stupid.  Inelegant.  Worst of all, it was big.
>No.  That just wasn't fair. She'd made due.  The actual worst part was it couldn't hold a load for all those pretty little nameless and unsuspecting mares.
>Then again, where would the fun be in having it easy?
>Being so balked, she had to do things to accommodate. Terrible things.  She had to learn them with the only training that worked, fighting differently than anything she had ever known than when she was in a feminine body out to kill.
>In the shifting hues of rolling spotlights, columns of color spun around the “dance floor.” Nets of lasers stroked the curves of the cheering, leering crowd.  Bricks of pure white lit the dancers from below as they moved.
>The steps were all so drunken to her.  The snap of bone, the twisting of flesh and hoof pounding surrenders upon the hardened polycarbon panels that protected the lights.  No organ ruptures, no gunshots.  How very unprofessional- though, that had been the reason she'd brought the need for it to Luna's attention.
>It was brutal. It was honest and fair and consentual.  It was a one-night stand between accepting lovers of the idea.  It was good goddamn practice, and that's just what her forces needed.
>It was purity of Rainbow's craft and lusts for mutual challenge, molded with the showmanship only LCD's, viciously gorgeous lasers, and heart-pounding music could grant. Most importantly, it thawed that synthetic spine, and was a divine reminder on just how alive she really was.

>As the last dancer fell, the strike to his ribs from a rear hoof splintering a rib inside the meat, Rainbow lofted a forehoof.  Drawing her eyes along the pseudo body like a laser-sharpened blade, she ran a diagnostic.
>The stallion's figure she occupied wore the TM'd, Copyrighted coat.  She pondered for a moment how Twilight had unknowingly exposed it during the second scorching atop her own little pet construct, thinking it's dilution of rarity would actually save worthwhile ponies lives.
>The violet pony always had been too idealistic for her own bucking good.
>When the text warning of her upcoming frolic typed on to her AR, her excitement crested.  She kept her wings down, luckily. Though, issuing fortune into the mix was unfair. She had gotten merely jaded enough to it after so many duets, she had to remind herself of that.
>She deactivated the coat's impact detectors.  The shock fluid sucked up silently into the reservoir, leaving her naked to the strikes.  It was only just to give them a real chance.
>The announcer droned on in a cheesy, metaphor laden exploitation of her false name.  “RGB.”  She rose to her hooves from the table, her half-gone drink buzzing in her ears.  She pinged the fiber-optic “hair” of her mane and tail, flooding it with pre-programmed stripes of flowing color.  It was the only way the egg heads at the lab had managed to reasonably clone her old hue.
>She loved the suspected irony of that little narcissism.  Truth was a bitch; if her partners had known, though, would they have even stepped in and kept her edge so sharp?
>Would Luna have ever accepted these little underhooved rings?
>Of course not. That made it all the better.  Who knows, maybe she'd get her flank kicked out here one night, or the ponies would find out just who had been at the helm the whole time.

>Not tonight, though.
>The announcer, some punk with a flair bordering on lisp, ushered her to the floor to the rythmic slam of hooves against the bass.
>Tonight...
>She shoved aside unsuspecting onlookers with her wings.  She crept down into practiced, instinctual stance.  The thick, tall stallion blew his mane from his eyes. She just licked her chassis' lips.  ”And this, fillies and gentlecolts, is the reason you slept in to see the stars...”
>Tonight, it was just a good,
>”To see that brilliant rainbow in the dark... Doing what he does best...”
>Old fashioned...
>”FIGHT!”
–
>Twilight sat upon the patio.  A vast circle of marble, a lace of nanite support latices giving it an odd and weak hexagonal pattern reflecting the moon.  All around her, the twinkling sky was in full bloom.  She picked out constellations, named their stars.
>And it was so very full of stars.  She could soothe herself for hours.
>The moon, it's platinum glow cracked with broken turquoise strings and pools, stared down upon her with worrisome judgement.  Every shimmer was a home or road to a thousand ponies, making a full world of what should have been strange and distant.  She could call up files, tourist guides, manifests...
>Why did that matter?
>The puple-ivory towers of Canterlot, connected by superbly curved transport rails, framed the glimmering orb within the sky.  She wanted to learn from it.  Wanted to know.
>Instead, she only had a unique distrust, and could only wonder as to what it had become with her influence.  Like a child that had grown out of her reach, it had nourished itself on her ignorance toward it.  What could she have done differently? What could she have restrained, to keep it filled with that old outdated philosophy called magic?
>The more she mused, the worse she felt.
>If magic came from the heart, from the soul, it was no wonder those childhood pseudo's had such a poor time in their esoteric schools.  They had no real soul, and so were unlinked.  Their talents, however pure they were, had no bearing on the magical arts.
>So then, she would think.  What about me?
>Just what had she lost, in plunging headlong into all the research she thought magnificent? It had all been so tainted by the few evil constructs, she had not a single urge to call it her own anymore at risk of the... Moniker.
>The lights within that gold-timmed ivory city held no answers. They had only glowing eyes, the warmth of magical light spilling from orange windows and doors.  A serene taste she once called friendship, powering it's simple needs.  If only the conversion, the change, had been so incomplete.
>The rims of solar converters upon the rooftops had a dull sheen in the moonlight.  Beams that faded to obscurity, poured into them from satellites with mathematical precision only capable with what she had perfected.  There was  no real magic in the technology, no real friendship.  Only the amalgam.
>Twilight Sparkle, was the cause.
>”I only wanted to help everyp0ny.”
>Fluttershy's last words echoed off the walls of her spirit.  Each ricochet made her heart bleed from a fresh hole, until it began to skip.
>As if upon some queue from an omniscience not her own, Twilight jolted in place.
>”Twilight Sparkle.  My prized pupil.”  Celestia took a seat beside her, sharing her vision of the night sky.  “I would have a word with you.”
–
>The world seemed to stop.  The control signal sent a prick beneath her wing, a flood of stimulants.  Rainbow saw the world in stillness, the awkward and jagged view of her dance partner's face pressed tightly to the floor.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: New assignment.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: Respond immediately.  No quarter will be given for refusal.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: Priority is absolute.
>Well shit.  Wasn't this a buck in the head?
>It took a while for reality to speed back up.  She sent the text with what her manic brain could achieve, the adrenaline only a footnote to the contribution of what those chemicals had done to her thoughts.
>RGB: Understood.  Returning to secure area for briefing.
>Snap.  Crackle.  Pop!
>Rainbow had engaged the augmentation weave in her body for a second.  That was all it took for her to wrench his legs free of the sockets, standing atop him with the chassis back legs.  First one foreleg, then the other.
>She wanted to be thorough. She didn't have time for him to make it a three-leg fight.
>Rainbow ignored everything after that.  The music, the lights, the other p0nies that scrambled to make a path while she moved the chassis to the windowed hall.  Even the announcer fumbled, making the entire scene so incredibly awkward for everyp0ny else involved.
>The window was shuttered.  She of course, had an authority against the ping; when the cascading metal folded upward, the light from above and below left the glass in an almost white gloss.  It tinted to blue, which left a layer of color on her chassis coat before she swung the window open.
>She turned back to a few of the following fans.  She shrugged directly at them, smiling wistfully, before tilting off her back hooves.  As she plummeted, she sent another text before letting her wings catch the twilight air.
>RGB: Lemme guess.  He bucked up.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: No.  The opposite.  He stood his ground.
>RGB: Really? How is that bad?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: It's not so much what he did. It was how he did it, and what he said.
>The controlled fall was brought to a low glide, over the blurred details of sidewalk and cosmetic shrubbery speeding beneath her.  She arrived back at the front entry, the elevator beyond her goal.  She flashed her ping, again, toward the confused LunaCorp. Guards.
>RGB: So why are you calling me?
>There was a pause as she entered the elevator. Her modifier signal began, and instead of lift, the elevator started to descend.  Deep underground, the signal lagged, but it maintained stability for at least a few minutes.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: He's too closed off.  Too irresponsible.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: He needs to be broken, but not destroyed.
>RGB: What about the other copies? Couldn't you just repurpose them?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: There were only three, including the original.  Each copy destabalizes the ego code like a photocopier-  He's the last one deemed safe, and the control Luna allowed him has turned against us.  Why would you even ask that? It's not like you.  You know Luna at least tries to respect your... Uniqueness, however uncouth a term it is to what YOU are.
>Rainbow grunted.
>RGB: Yeah.  You're right about that. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful for what you and her did for me.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: All the freedom she's given the two of you...  I can't believe it backfired like it has.  I'm just happy you're in such a good state of mind.
>RGB: You still haven't told me what you want, TnGP.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: You know where you are.
>As Rainbow fell further and further beneath the earth, the signal barely held on.  There were no relays.  Luna, being so very complete in her precautions after the Chrysalis incident, had probably been the only one to indulge in that little “isolation” feature.
>It was why Rainbow kept right on respecting her.
>TheGreatAndPowerful:  The new chassis is ready for you.
>On those words scattering across her view, Rainbow nearly lost it.  Joy and homesickness, all in one, swirled into a billow of one of her favorite things. Anticipation.
>RGB: REALLY? You're letting me use it?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: I don't see any other way.
>RGB: What do you mean?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: Casualties are unacceptable.
>RGB: Huh?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: You are to transfer, arm up, and make your way to Twilight Firmware's tower.  You are to alert security as violently but as harmlessly as possible.
>RGB: I'm not going to do wetwork against Firmware's or Bio-magic. I already told you that. It's in the contract, TnGP.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: I am explicitly telling you NOT to, RGB. Even the target.  Take them down, but don't kill them.  But make it overt as to what you are, and what you're capable of.
>RGB: … Tell me what the target is first.  I won't hurt my friends.
>TheGreatAndPowerful:  Gilda the griffon.  Lure her out, and do what you will with her.
>RGB: what?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: Do you need the dossier?
>RGB: No.  I'm just confused.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: Gilda is on site. With the tower operation Anonymous trusts her, and endeared herself with the information she has about the op to become one of Twilight's... “avatars.”
>TheGreatAndPowerful: A clever placement of herself, really.
>RGB:  Nobody did give her credit for being that smart.  But, she's a corporate avatar? Like me?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: You have a different perspective, RGB.  And a current image without stigma.  One that has a greater strength and will behind it.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: There are p0nies and constructs right now that need to see that in a construct, regardless of how it's shown.  So I think it's time to get a little louder.
>RGB: Then why did you cover up the street fight I had with her?  You could just show that off.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: It's a little too late for that.  It's already been dismissed as a trivial intercorporate skirmish.  Not to mention it was less than a noble approach, and a regular p0ny was in control of the chassis that destroyed yours.  It would kill Luna's AND the synthetics already crumbly reputation.
>RGB: I told you it was a bad idea. Why didn't you listen?
>TheGreatAndPowerful: That's why we need you now, RGB.  Like it or not, even with your recent history, there are p0nies that are more than going to take notice.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: They are going to take up arms, and they are going to do it against p0nies like you.
>RGB: Then just send a drone out or something. I don't like the idea of ruining Twilight's shit.
>TheGreatAndPowerful: You are a household icon.  Still very positive, if the toy sales are any indication.
>RGB: Okay. I get it.  But I don't have to hurt her, right?
>RGB: Just... Fight with her?
>You know, Rainbow thought.  I think I could handle that...
>TheGreatAndPowerful: They need to see a construct is still willing to do something.  Otherwise, well...  Things are going to get well out of hoof.  We won't be in any position to defend if Nightmare is still alive, especially if the constructs are going to get legally or morally stifled into dysfunction.
>RGB: That bad huh?
>The elevator doors opened to a security room.  Filled with guards and the smell of cryogenic weapons (a languid and oddly minty taste), she wasn't even ushered in.  Merely acknowledged.
>Rainbow proceeded past hissing blast doors, a security and x-ray scan in an illuminated hallway.  Then, the “me room.”
>Cylinders with reinforcement weave, filled with a nutrient solution, were laid down within holes to either side of the walkway.  The only light came from within the chambers, the shadows and reflections of bubbling yellow fluid rippling upon the obsessively clean walls.  Six in total, three to a side, only two were empty. The rest held her reserve chassis, lockers near each which held mimicry of the LunaCorp. Coat, weapons, harnesses, and some food supplies.  All of them were stupid, inelegant, and big.
>There was one, though.  The last tube within the far wall.
>Looking at it, the locks upon it's lockers unsealing for the first time she had ever seen, the body inside was so familiar.  Every time she viewed it from outside, the absolute necessity to be that p0ny again was almost overwhelming.  But she was a good enough p0ny for Luna.  She followed orders.  She didn't try to crack the info seals, or the locks.  Well, not often, and she never did succeed.
>Tonight, though, she was being given precedence.  Tonight had time for one more good fight.
>One she could not be anyp0ny else for.
>Certainly not with Gilda.
–
>Trixie approached Twilight from the opposite side. With notable disdain, Twilight swallowed it with all the comfort of a pill comprised of excrement infused with broken glass.  Trixie peered at her before sitting on her haunches, and lowering her head.
>”There was still something else we needed to talk about.” Celestia said.
>”I... I don't know if I have the stomach for it right now.”  Twilight shriveled up beneath the moonglow, synthetic and otherwise.
>”Please, Twilight-” Trixie tried to speak.
>”You've done enough already.  Luna has done enough.”
>”She's only scared, Twilight.” Trixie replied.  “Luna... She didn't want a panic.  She didn't want another Chrysalis incident.”
>”Yeah, how swell that's turned out to be.”
>Trixie curled up herself.  The glow on her suit made Twilight suddenly realize it was quite fake; no hint of an natural fibers were there.  It was not entirely synthetic, though. The stripes, she finally noticed, were something else.  Under the moon, patterns glowed within them.  Tiny, curving, and sharp.  They were runes.
>They were magic.
>”I have no idea how you got so strong in magic.” Twilight said to Trixie, giving a disgusted glance toward the sky.  Canis Major.  After saying it, she almost apologized.  Was that a hint of jealousy she'd let slip?
>”I... Well.” Trixie let out a defeated laugh. “I made friends.”
>A rusty, careful knife started to saw at Twilight's jugular.  Cool emotion wept from her lips. “With Luna and everything she's done? How can you say that's worth it?”
>”Please, Twilight. Don't be so condescending.” Celestia intervened with her usual grace, and Twilight felt the urge to question her.  It would not be the first time.
>”You are still my most prized pupil.  Do you know why?” Celestia's mane drifted in glorious off-color, drenched in the blue of night.
>Twilight looked between her mentor and Trixie.  Celestia stared down at her with that everlasting, knowing smile.  “You are always learning.  It's as if you have no limit.  I can't even begin to say how precious a skill, however unappreciated, that is.”
>”I... I don't understand.”  Twilight looked up to her teacher.  “I've lost so much.  Given it up.  How could you possibly-”
>”You are in the learning stages of something very important, Twilight.” She merely said.  “Tell me.  Why did you focus your abilities so much into technology?  When did it start?”
>”That...”  She tried to recall.  It was difficult, but possible.  She had to take an extra few seconds. “I remember thinking, 'wow, what could Applejack do in a day with this?”  She paused.
>Applejack.
>Goddess, they hadn't invited Applejack to the convention!
>Of all the moronic, empty-headed-
>”That's exactly what you sent to me.  On one of those first consoles, too.” Celesita amused herself in the recollection, smirking. “Poor Spike. He still talks about sending those letters.  You know, I still have that console in my throne room?”
>”What? The old model 1's?”
>”Of course.” Celestia said.  “I keep a great deal more than you noticed.”  She kept on smiling, but sighed. “Not much of it is parchment, anymore, but still.  There are things that hold value.  Things that hold memories, and do so far better than the devices you continue to refine.”
>Twilight was at a loss.  She felt as if she were being attacked.
>So, why didn't she feel like she needed to defend herself?
>”I learned a lot from you, Twilight Sparkle. Mostly that I just needed to be myself.”  Trixie found strength from some arrogant depth in her soul, pissing it out like a drunken thief.  Twilight wished that the coming moment with Celestia, something she knew would be more tender in it's approach, would have been more polished.  Not with Trixie around.
>”Even Luna looks up to you, in a way.”
>”I'm sure she does.” Twilight responded, almost heartlessly.
>Trixie grunted. “I mean it!” She exclaimed, almost as if casting out an order.  “I look to her, and she looks to you.  Not direct by any means, but she does so because you have to remain you.”
>”I've done oh so swimmingly.” Twilight said.  “The things she's done behind our flanks...”
>Celestia held out a hoof across Twilight's chest for a moment.  ”That is a fault of my sister.  She has a problem with trust.  You can imagine why.” She pointed toward the Moon, and retreated.
>Twilight followed the gesture, clenching her teeth on arrival.
>”You know why she established that city on the Moon?  She hates the place.  But she is the princess of the night- she recognizes it's significance.”
>Twilight reviewed in her mind.  Mental files, overlapping, referencing, searching.
>”It remains a prison.” Celestia said.
>Twilight turned to Luna, but it was Trixie that spoke up first.
>”The infrastructure.  The p0nies.  They commit to something they don't understand, because they've forgotten it.”  Trixie languished.  “It's all built on top of an idea.  That Nightmare Moon was to remain imprisoned.  When she was struck by the elements so long ago, she alone was banished there.  So, when the capacity to return- which you provided- arose, Luna took the opportunity.  She built a foundation to fuel the prison.”
>Twilight watched the worlds fold over Trixie's lips.
>Luna's isolation there, in her city.
>Magic was fueled by friendship...
>The clubs. The massive social network LunaCorp was known for.  P0nies from every place and in every walk of life, pegasi, earth and unicorn...
>It was the power of magic, fed by the digital.  The most wonderful thing she had ever heard in the exploitation of her own work, it was the worst thing she could possibly imagine.
>Almost, anyway.
>”But, she escaped...” Twilight said.  The moment she finished, she realized the implications of her own words.  All that power, harvested from two worlds over, had failed.
>No, Twilight thought.  It had weakened.
>Anonymous...  He had been right.
>She looked to the sky through shuddering and flooded eyes.  The moon stared back at her, brilliant and brisk.  “Why didn't you tell me?” She asked.
>”When have I ever denied you a learning experience, Twilight?” the white mare asked her.
>Goddamnit, Celestia.
>”I'm only sad it took you so long...”
>Responsibilities, in an unholy weight, forced upon her the vision of memories.  They were only faces, but they were legion.
>”Cadence!” she exclaimed, suddenly alarmed.  She stood in sudden and focused vigor.  “I-I have to talk to Cadence.  The virus-”
>”I've already presented myself for use in that regard.” Trixie said.  Twilight turned to look over her own shoulder, staring at the blue unicorn.  “After all,” Trixie said. “What are friends for, right?”  She laughed weakly.
>”Princess,” Twilight began.  Things had been well prepared.  All of them, it seemed, without her.  She did not take exclusion well.  “I... I don't understand.  I should be helping her, not-”
>”It's a different matter than banishment or illness.” She sighed.  She started to pick out her own stars amidst the sky. “You need to tend to things I cannot.”
>”What are you saying?”
>Celestia continued to gaze upward.  Her view tilted, and she even leaned even further back to look towards the sky.  “About Anonymous... Trixie and I have been talking.  We can't argue that he has a point.”
>”Well, yes, the synthetics are separate, but that's only because of the social ills Chrysalis started-”
>”Which is why you persist in your intervention.  You have not come across a single pseudo that is evil, have you?”
>”N-no... Only the ones that converted themselves and acted alone ever-”
>”You know for a fact that they are fresh, then.  New.  Pure.”
>”Yes, but they're only babes in the woods. We have to be careful with handling them.”
>Celestia got a very sudden, very vivid smile. “I absolutely agree.  But, I agree with Anonymous too.  They are different, but they deserve their souls to be unhindered.  They deserve to be part of, or at least their own, civilization.  Then we can know how to deal with them.”
>Twilight didn't like this.  They had to be controlled, maintained, watched.  They could not be trusted, they...
>They...
>Frightened her.
>Remembering the look in Fluttershy's eyes, they angered her.
>Goddess.  Just what, Twilight thought, have I lost?  My mind?  My gumption?
>”They deserve, you could say, to be their own kingdom.”
>”I don't enjoy disagreeing with you, Princess. Not ever.” Twilight stepped toward her defiantly. It was a meek gesture just the same, with their compared height.  “But I have to protest.  They need to be pointed in a direction, at the very least.  Somewhere positive, especially when they're so deep in every little thing we have.”
>”Well,” Celestia said. “I would say your schools have already started that, haven't they?  It simply wasn't admitted.” she gave a crisp sigh. “You are right, Twilight.  They need something more that can lead them in the right direction.  Somep0ny.  I don't think Anonymous is of the proper mindset to do so, would you agree.”
>”No, not at all.” Twilight remarked.
>Wait.
>What?
>No.  No no no!
>”What they need is a p0ny that knows what the system really is.  The ins, the outs.  Somep0ny that is willing to feel sympathy for them.  One that can learn with them, and has an exquisite knowledge of friendship, and the system itself.”
>Twilight stepped back.  Please, Celestia, you can't be insinuating...
>”What is it they call you in the pseudo schools, Twilight?  The name they put to you from all those history files?”
>Twilight almost fell.  She slouched, and finally had to choke back the tears.  “Yours... The Great Mother.”
>Celestia and Trixie allowed her the moment to collect.  She tried to make shunning and careless excuses. “I quashed that.  It wasn't allowed.  The teachers can't let them say it, it's not proper, it-”
>”Twilight,” Celestia said.  “I barely understand what you've brought to me, in of these digital crises. Every time, I've deferred to you.  *You* have been the one trying to spread peace and friendship amid them, and I have only been there. Inept, and spectating.  Acting with resources you did not have yourself, on plans you devised.  I can only tend to my kingdom, after all.  It's all I have sovereignty over.  With the way the world shifts in that digital place through which you so readily know, I can only view the borders changing and act to preserve my own p0nies.  You've been fighting this quiet war for them all along.”
>Twilight's horn glowed with unfocused energy, her AR vision scrambling repeatedly from the garbage power input.  Even with her eyes closed, she was able to see the static.
>”Please, I need to think about this.  Talk to some other p0nies.”
>”Trixie understands you have good friends,” Trixie said.  “That makes the most sense.”
>Twilight wasn't appreciative of that remark.
>After all, she'd already prepared an appointment for the following day.  It would be-or rather, would have been- the perfect p0ny to ask about her sudden recall of those old values. It's what was scaring her, and doing so in such a way her ribs seemed to burn.  Especially with the expletives she'd spewed in the “invitation” over abusing Scootaloo's services against her.
>Somep0ny just a little dirty, just a little too down to earth.
>Somep0ny willing to do and say the rough things nop0ny else would.
>Somep0ny honest.
–