Before we get into the chapter, I'd like to make a quick announcement/heads up: over the next few weeks or so, I plan on revisiting the first few chapters of the story and tweaking them a bit, or in some cases rewriting them entirely. This project has been ongoing for upwards of two years now, and I can barely look back at my work from that long ago without cringing. And so, I hope to make them a bit more consistent with the style and relative quality of the later chapters.

Worry not, as I will not change any plot events that have already happened, but don't be surprised if I slip in a few more details or foreshadowing here and there to make the whole thing fit together better. Just putting that out there, in case you are interested in reading the improved early chapters as they are written. I think I'll keep y'all up to date in an author's note just like this along with the standard weekly updates so that you don't have to go hunting for the changes yourselves. :L

I think that's about it. Enjoy this week's (somewhat short, sorry) chapter!

Chapter 52: Making Connections

Astra grunted as her scythe cut down yet another rust-colored imp, more already clambering through the windows behind her. All this continued effort to keep her room monster-free piled more and more fatigue on her. Surely the first wave would have to die down soon, she thought, and that thought had been enough to keep her going for a while, but there was simply no end in sight.

A duo of particularly dodgy imps, given the fluidity of their slimy bodies, cornered her, forcing her up the stairs to the roof. Immediately, she could see why her house was so overrun. Beats had been taking the steady supply of build grist dropped by the imps and adding floor after floor without restraint, alternating between stairs and platforms. As she recalled hearing about from a conversation with Bellia, underlings were swarming into the house to fill the new space.

Backing away from the imps, Astra pulled out her phone, her fingers flailing across the keys in a desperate attempt to hammer out a message to her server player.

- spacefaringPioneer [SP] began pestering discoJubilation [DJ] -

SP: Beats.
SP: Stop.
SP: Please.
DJ: why? DJ's on a roll with this building thing! 8D
DJ: and it's our goal to build up to those gates, right?

Taking a deep breath, Astra lunged at the imp on the left, impaling it in the chest. The other imp attempted to strike at her, but she gave it a solid kick before slashing it in the neck, causing it to explode into a handful of build and a blocky brown grist. The first imp was then met with a downward slice to the top of the head, causing it to befall the same fate. Taking a well-earned moment of reprieve, Astra turned to her phone.

SP: Not so quickly.
SP: Taller towers attract more imps.
SP: I need a better way to deal with them.
DJ: dang i'm sorry sis D8
DJ: what do you need me to do for you?

Still panting, Astra noticed some more movement out of the corner of her eye. A line of eager, mischievous imps bearing various familiar traits had formed on the stairs, and they were starting to head her way.

SP: Help.

She didn't have to wait long. Within seconds, a huge partially-constructed rocket fell from above, crushing most of the imps near the staircase. Astra was shocked at Beats's choice of weapon, but she wasn't complaining.

DJ: took a load of grist just to move the thing, but man was it worth it!
SP: Thank you...
DJ: no prob, sis!
DJ: oh by the way, did you get that memo invitation from Bellia yet?
DJ: it's not much of a party without you! 8D
SP: Memo?...

Astra checked her phone again, and sure enough, another Pesterchum window had appeared at some point. She had been too busy defending herself to notice.

- accomodatedDragon [AD] began pestering spacefaringPioneer [SP] -

AD: Hey Astra, now that the game is really afoot, I decided to take the initiative and start up a memo for ease of communication.
AD: Assuming I figured out how to set up links properly, clicking here should take you right to it!

Astra clicked on the link without hesitation, generating another window and confirming that Bellia figured it out. She was instantly met with the faces of three of her co-players: an aloof Reed, a joyful Bellia, and an excited Beats.

"And there she is!" greeted Beats. "What's happenin', sis?"

"I believe you know already," Astra joked, the sight of all her old friends on the same screen bringing a genuine smile to her face. "You went straight to video chat, I see."

"Reed's idea," Bellia attributed, the fox looking away in slight embarrassment. "He couldn't be bothered to type, or read, for that matter, line after line of chat dialogue. Frankly, I don't blame him. Nobody wants to sit through that. It's more fun this way, anyway."

"You got that right!" Beats soulfully agreed.

"So when do you think the others will show up?" asked Astra.

"Whenever they get around to it?" Reed guessed. "I guess they've been busy or something lately."

"I can send the invites, at least," Bellia offered.

"Start with my pegasus bro Hailstorm," suggested Beats. "He's my server, so he might already be in!"

"Chumhandle?" Bellia queried.

"Just hailStorm," Beats informed, earning a laugh from Reed.

"Wow, not even I'm that lazy," the Page commented.

"Didn't Bellia come up with your chumhandle, Reed?" Astra reminded him. "You probably would have stuck with pesterClient489 if not for her suggestion."

Reed simply sighed, gazing dully off-screen. Bellia quickly typed a few things, clattering noisily on her keyboard. "Invite sent!"

Mere seconds later, an image of a confused-looking Hailstorm popped up next to everyone else's faces.

"Sup, Hailbringer!" Beats was quick on the draw in the greeting department.

"Wow, Hail, that was fast," Astra noted.

"You mean he's an actual horse?" Reed questioned. "With wings?"

"An adorable actual horse," Bellia added.

Hail blinked, overwhelmed by the digitized voices of his allies. "Uh, hi?"

Bellia grinned. "Yep, he's here and conscious! Ok, how about inviting Blah next..."

"W-wait!" cried Hail. "Don't invite Blah. His account kinda got..." His voice lowered to a whisper, though he wasn't entirely confident it would help. "...hijacked. By Charge."

Everyone appeared stunned by this turn of events, except for Reed, who tilted his head. "By... who?"

"Whlie you were making yourself comfortable under that rock of yours," Bellia quipped, "a strange, evil human named Charge came out of nowhere and tried to take over the session. Er, is still trying, apparently."

"And he kinda... sorta..." Hail sheepishly scratched his mane. "Succeeded."

Astra sat in a horrified stupor upon hearing the news. "How so?" she demanded.

"Let Beats guess," cut in the vegetable, "He pretended to be Blah and swindled you into making him your server player."

Hail nodded hastily. "B-but we stopped him from prototyping Mefirst, at least!" he defended himself.

"I stopped him," corrected Swift Star, hovering into view behind Hail. "It could have been really bad. He tried to prototype the guy before entry!"

"Wait, does that matter?" Hail asked.

"Think about it," said Bellia, "Underlings take on the traits of whatever the players prototype before entry."

"So we could have wound up with a bunch of imps performing postal Hajike," Beats explained. "And being all smug."

"And who were also loyal to Charge, no doubt," Astra finished.

"Oh... So that was his big plan... and with it out of the way..." Hail's face lit up. "We may have a chance after all! Although..." The light faded just as quickly. "Him being my server player kind of locks him into entering the medium, doesn't it..."

"Not necessarily," Bellia presented. "Blah might still be able to enter in his place via... shenanigans."

Hail scratched his head. "What do you mean?"

"Well, whatever it means," Astra replied, "I don't think there's much we can do to help from here, unfortunately. It's all up to Blah and everyone on the other side. We should focus on progressing in the game."

"Oh, you guys should definitely try out alchemy!" recommended Bellia, ecstatic to bring up the subject. "Why don't you take me on a tour around your houses, and I'll see if I can come up with cool recipes to try..."

Reed rolled his eyes. "There she goes again..."

"Hey Sera, now that we have a moment, how about giving me my memories back?"

While Tom Nook fiddled with the controls of the TARDIS, and Broshi attempted to find a spot on the hard metal floor that wasn't unpleasant to lay down on, Knight and Sera conversed by the door.

"You figured it out already?" Sera asked incredulously.

"Let's be honest here, keeping the topic from coming up at all during that conversation would have taken a miracle," Knight protested. "It was just a matter of time. He's improved a lot, though. Yeah, I made a promise to myself not to go crazy with revenge or whatever."

Sera briefly closed her eyes, and Blah and Tails felt even more crowded than usual. They took a wild guess that she was probing their minds.

'I'll never get used to that,' Tails complained internally.

'You're telling me,' Blah responded.

The Kadabra's eyes opened again. "I believe you are sufficiently prepared," she determined. "Very well then. Here it comes."

Blah suddenly found himself in the middle of Ponyville's market district, having been tasked with buying food. Looking for a good deal, his eyes were eventually drawn to a bright pink, bouncing pony talking excitedly with one of the stall owners. He drew closer, causing her to notice his presence and turn around, their eyes meeting. In that moment, behind that curious, cheerful gaze, he could see a spark, something new and amazing, but shook his head as he realized the awkwardness of his stare. In a nervous attempt to save face, he bought a whole cart full of apple products from that stall and left in a hurry. He had no idea what that feeling was, but he had to find out more. He had to see her again.

The next day came just as fast, and he wound up heading for the same stall, not-so-casually asking the orange mare about the pink one after his purchase. He jumped from place to place, always just out of sight of this strange pony called Pinkie Pie, watching her, learning more about her, but never working up the courage to talk to her.

Moments later, he found himself knocking on Pinkie's door. He intended to ask if she wanted to hang out with him sometime, but instead he chickened out and searched for a different excuse to be there, settling on asking to borrow a trumpet sitting on a table visible from the door. What a weak excuse, he thought. He didn't even play the trumpet. She happily, if curiously, obliged, and after hearing her ramble about music, he was on his way again.

As another flash forward occurred, this time to the midst of a party, Blah realized he was reliving the memories as they were returning to him, and rather vividly at that. Large, weird gaps in his timeline were filling up. This was not just any party, it was HIS party, celebrating the earning of his cutie mark. After 20 years of being a blank flank, realizing his talent finally gave him the confidence he needed to confess his feelings to her. Much to his surprise, he found out that she had felt exactly the same way all this time. They kissed, their spark erupting into a bright burning flame. Blah felt complete once again.

The montage continued, leading up to his meeting with Discord. He recalled how Pinkie was completely unfazed by Discord's coy stretching of the deal they had made. She knew that Blah was still the same Blah. She understood that the god of chaos meant no harm in his antics. It was just a silly joke that changed nothing in the end.

Pinkie had nothing against Discord, and so Discord had nothing against her. As Blah once again discovered her deceased body through Sera's eyes, he began to question why Discord would choose to eliminate her over anyone else with that in mind. Was it really for the sake of reverse psychology? Was Discord's harmless prank just an act?

Blah's senses finally recovered. Only seconds had passed since Sera began the procedure, but Blah had stumbled across a world of knowledge.

"I trust Discord."

"Excuse me?" Broshi looked up at him, confused. "You just got through saying that he killed Pinkie Pie."

"Pinkie trusted him," Blah clarified, "and so I trust him. Discord did not murder Pinkie."

"You sound certain of that," Sera observed. "So, do you know who really did it?"

"It must have been Charge," Blah concluded. "Maybe not directly, but having her killed was his plan. As we discussed, framing Discord of murder would be the perfect way to force us to break our alliance. And he knew that if he targeted Pinkie, he'd be able to get even me on Discord's bad side. He probably even counted on the fact that I would go on a solo rampage. I should be out of commission by now, trapped in a hard drive, according to his plans."

"Thus allowing him an opportunity to cause some real damage." Sera bowed her head, exploring the unpleasant possibilities. "Perhaps he is unaware that you are still fully sane. What would he attempt?"

"What I'm worried about is that white pegasus pony," Broshi cut in. "He's supposed to be one of us, right? I haven't heard from him at all since I got stranded in the future."

"I sent Hailstorm to help Beats enter the medium," Sera explained. "Thank you for reminding me, though. We should check up on him."

"Good to know I can trust you guys to carry on without me," Blah praised.

Sera walked over to the central console. "Tom Nook, may I borrow the TARDIS's computer?"

"You certainly may!" Nook allowed, stepping away from the monitor.

The Psychic-type logged into Pesterchum with the speed of a hacker, pestering Hailstorm the moment the window appeared. Knight, Broshi, and Nook all gathered around the screen.

- myriadOracle [MO] began pestering hailStorm [HS] -

MO: Hailstorm, how are things going over there?
HS: oh thank celestia seras here
HS: things are a bit complicated
MO: How so?
HS: we made a memo ill explain after you join it
HS: talking is so much easier than typing
MO: Understandable. Can we have a link?
HS: um hold on
HS: try this

Sera clicked on the link, opening a separate window full of video feeds. The sound of a spunky female voice instantly resonated through the time machine's unseen speaker system.

"...though clouds can be useful for combining things, I suppose. Can you even captchalogue a cloud?"

"Heeey, there's some new faces!" The familiar voice of Beats, eager to change the subject away from the dragon's rambling, heartily welcomed the passengers of the TARDIS.

"Finally..." muttered Hailstorm, barely audible.

"Hello again, Sera, Tails, Broshi," Astra greeted. "Who's the raccoon? Another friend of yours, I take it?"

"Tom Nook is the name," Nook introduced himself. "Don't mind me, I'm just the pilot!"

"And I'm here too," Knight spoke up. "That is to say, Blah's here too. He's me, sorta. We're sharing the same mind space. It's a long story. And speaking of long stories, you had something to tell us, didn't you, Hail?"

Hail sighed. He really wanted to ask about the predicament Blah landed himself in, but he decided he'd rather get his own explanation out of the way first. "Long story short, Charge somehow hacked your Pesterchum account and fooled me into letting him be my server player."

"Hacked?!" exclaimed Knight. "My account?! He can do that?!"

"If I recall correctly," Astra contributed, "you left Waluigi in charge of your computer. That's not exactly a solid defense."

Knight facepalmed. "So he has my computer, and he's your server player... is there any scenario in which this doesn't end badly?"

"Well, he can't kill me..." Hail recalled. "He admitted it."

"And he's not technically in the game yet, either," said Astra. "If we can stall him from entering the medium until we reclaim Blah's computer, we can salvage this."

"In other words, Blahtown needs guards." Knight looked up in thought. "Who do we know is competent in battle and would be willing to stick around and defend a small town?"

Before anyone could answer, another chat window popped up on the screen, which immediately filled with several reddish orange lines of text belonging to an account known as monsterRingleader.

MR: Ok, surely THIS time I got the right person
MR: Right?
MR: Sera?

Sera froze. Knight and Broshi stared, dumbfounded, at the screen, trying to discern the identity of this stranger.

"Who the heck..." Knight began, but was silenced by Tom Nook.

"That would be Bob Sladfigy," he said with a hint of suppressed resentment in his voice. "He was our session's Thief of Blood..."

"Oh, brother, what could he want this time..." groaned the voice of Astra, reminding everyone that the memo could still hear what was going on.

"Wait, YOUR session?" This was the first that Blah had heard of it. "You had a session?!"

"Nook came from a universe that also played SBURB, but failed or something," Broshi hastily hand-waved.

"Ok, that makes sense..." Blah's casual acceptance of Broshi's explanation caused the dinosaur to frown slightly. "But on a more important note, BOB was in it?!"

"Sounds like you've met him," deduced the raccoon. "And probably fought him, oh, three times?"

"Only twice," Blah answered. "...can I ask who else was in that session of yours?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Nook declined. "I just can't think of a reason you would need to know everything right this instant, hm?"

Blah shrugged. "I'm just curious, is all. It couldn't hurt to tell me, could it?"

Sera decided to ignore Blah and Nook's conversation and humor Bob for a while.

MO: This is Seraphina.
MR: Oh thank all of the gods
MR: I tried to contact Blah but he told me to talk to you about it
MR: Anyway I thought about that battle we had not too long ago
MR: I feel really bad about the whole thing
MR: making you fight Blah and then having him killed
MO: It did result in me reuniting with him.
MO: If not for you, I might still be in the captivity of Charge.
MR: But you guys were set back like weeks because of me
MR: All I've been thinking about is revenge and all it's doing is keeping you from saving the world or whatever
MR: I have to make it up to you somehow

"I think we have our guards," announced Sera, cutting off Blah's umpteenth attempt at convincing Nook to describe his session.

"What?" Blah took a moment to read the conversation so far. "Are you seriously going to-" He stopped as he realized Sera was paying no attention to him, continuing to type.

MO: You are in luck. We have a very important task, and you seem to be perfect for it.
MR: Really? Name it! I'm there!
MO: Go to Blahtown with your team and secure it from any uninvited guests.
MO: Blah left his computer there, and Charge seems to have stolen it.
MR: Blahtown?
MO: A town that Blah built. Creative name, is it not?
MR: It's very... fitting
MR: but uh, before I go
MR: my team is still kind of incomplete
MR: Yumos still hates me
MO: I will accompany you. Our strategy in the beginning of our fight against Blah was nearly flawless.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hang on," Blah cut in after seeing Sera send off that message, "You are NOT going with Bob again. We can't be sure he'll stay true to his word."

"I spent a few days with him, if you will recall," Sera countered. "He may be hotheaded and confrontational, and certainly unpredictable, but he is ultimately loyal, and treasures his alliances dearly. He is unlikely to betray us, at least not intentionally. You should know this better than I do, Blah. I was under the impression that you created him."

"I can vouch for him as well," Nook added. "He always looks out for the team, even if he insists on doing things his way..."

Blah opened his mouth again, but shut it slowly upon realizing that they were exactly right. "Ok, I guess there's no problem with it, but..." He looked over at the prone dinosaur, who sat this conversation out on the grounds that he thought he had nothing relevant to contribute. "Broshi, you're going with her."

Broshi sat up and stretched. "Fine. I doubt I would've been any help at that professor's place anyway."

MR: Oh, sweet! Thanks a lot!
MO: No problem.
MR: Can we meet at the Veilstone City Pokemon Center?
MO: Of course, in a while. I can teleport you to Blahtown from there.
MR: Great! See you there!

The window closed, and a brief silence followed.

"So Bob's on our side now?" Astra asked.

"Looks like it," Blah confirmed, hardly believing it either.

"Beats, would you kindly pick up that rocket again and drop it on me?"