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// Chapter 1: You are a pony now, deal with it! 
// Story: Tales of the Equestrian Mock War 
// by Sebbaa 
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Chapter 1: You are a pony now, deal with it!
Sometimes I wish that my friends could enjoy My Little Pony the way I do, the brony way. I had of course tried to get them hooked on the show. I made them watch the first two Episodes when we were playing board games. On our annual lan party I made a point of watching the series, every time they played COD. I hate COD. But it was all no use. Only one of them liked the show, but not the way I do. The way that makes me draw ponies and make up fan fiction in my free time. (And at work. You can do a lot of writing when you are in a boring three hour meeting.)
The others think me to be a bit crazier than they thought me before. Oh well. They are still my friends and live with me and my silly antics, so that has to count for something.

Not that my friends are boring slobs themselves. We already share a hobby that earns us strange looks by “normal” people. We play fantasy larp.  If you are not familiar with it: You run around in the woods dressed as elves, dwarfs, knights and such and hit each other with a padded stick. Then you sit at the campfire and get ridiculously drunk sharing mead and meat. When you are at it you can sing silly songs about other times you got ridiculously drunk sharing mead and meat. It’s great fun! 


Enough with the boring introduction. Let me tell you about the days of the great Equestrian Mock War!
It was a cold but clear winter’s day when I met up with my friends to do a day of larping. We met at a log cabin lost somewhere in the wood and farmland between Cologne and Frankfurt. (Did I forget to mention that I’m German?) 
I had just changed into my larping gear, wearing a chainmail hauberk and coif, a boffer claymore slung over my back, and met my friends outside, in front of the cabin, when I was interrupted by the strangest thing that ever happened to me.
I heard a voice in my head. Normally that alone is reason for pause and alarm, but it was the voice of the most obnoxious unicorn I knew too.
“You mortal have been chosen for the honor to serve Equestria in the great mock battle against the Griffon Empire. If you accept just say what.” The great and powerful Trixie announced in my head.
Of course I said “what”. Actually I said “Was?” but I think from that point forth there was some magic translation going on. No matter what I said from there on, it came out in pony and I could understand anypony perfectly fine. No matter what language they might use outside of Equestria.
So I said “what?” not as an agreement, but because I didn’t know what was going on. Trixie took it as agreement though and cast her spell. Oh she is a sly one like that.
The world around me began to spin, faster and faster, then it just disappeared and I was floating in a formless empty void. I had lost all feeling of my body at that time. I am not sure I even had one at that moment actually. I think I would have thrown up if I had. I have no idea for how long I traveled the void, for there was no way to tell the time. So a short, long time later, the world began to spin around me again, this time in the different direction. 
Then it suddenly stopped and I was in my body once again. I felt dizzy and would have lost my balance and stumbled to the ground. But I found I was standing very stable on four legs. Of course it got ever stranger from there. I bet you know what happened next. Hack! Maybe you were even there. 
The world around me was impossible bright and colorful. The bright rays of the sun gently warmed my back, trees had lush green leaves, birds were singing. It was apparently not winter anymore and I was no longer in Kansas. (make that Rheinland Pfalz.)
I shielded my eyes with a hoof to give them some time to adjust to the bright light. If that occurred strange to me, I gave it no heed at the moment. For at that instant a light azure unicorn with an almost white mane walked in front of me. She was wearing a purple coat and a pointed hat, both adorned with golden and silver stars. She was levitating a scroll, quill and ink in front of her and was reading from the scroll, when she stopped before me.
“Recruit eight hundred and ninety five.” she said, addressing me without looking up from her scroll. 
“What?” I said still not knowing what was going on.
“Yes, we already went over that.” The unicorn replied annoyed.
“What race do you choose, will it be pegasus, unicorn or earth pony Mr. ...” she asked me, but stopped when she looked at me for the first time. “Never mind, earth pony it is.” She said after taking a glance at me and made a cross on her list. 
Without further explanation she moved on. I tried to ask her what was going on, but I was ignored. "But I want to be a pegasus!" I called after her. She paid me not more heed.
As I looked around, I saw that I was not alone. There were rows and rows of ponies standing around me. Unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies, most of them looked as confused as I felt. I had just asked the pony next to me: “What is going on?” when he was interrupted by a gray coated pegasus mare wearing golden armor, before he could answer. Her eyes were misaligned and spinning all over the place. But somehow she managed only to look fiercer because of it.
"All right," she said with a voice that was entirely too adorable for the battle hardened visage she tried to keep, "I won't lie. Last time we held these games, the griffons beat us into the ground so hard we found potatoes. They haven't let us live it down since. But now? Now that all stops, thanks to all of you. I bet you have a lot of questions, and rest assured you will get answers. Eventually. Probably.... Maybe."
"Uh... excuse me." I interrupted her speech and raised a hoof in question. But I didn’t get any. 
"What? No time! Follow me, all of you. It's time to get you dressed." She said as she trotted over to me. She looked me up and down. Then she nodded with something that looked like approval.
“I see you are already dressed for the occasion. Come along anyway. No loitering around!” she told me and trotted on.

I took a moment to look down on myself. I was still wearing my chain mail. Under it I sported four legs, covered in golden, yellow, shaggy fur. They ended in hooves of copper brown color. Quickly I looked over my shoulder, only to see that I had the hind side of a pony. It was all covered in mail, from under it pronounced a straight blue tail. My boffer claymore was strapped to my left flank. 

I put a hoof to may face to feel if everything was still there. Eyes were still there, of course silly, still had a nose, beard was still the same. “Alright, could be worse.” I said to myself.
You might ask why I did not freak out at that revelation. I can tell you, I was quite surprised. Maybe shocked even. But I’m not the person to freak out over something I have no influence over. I’m far too lazy for that. There is a saying among my friends: “Hast du Scheiße am Schuh, dann hast du Scheiße am Schuh!“ So I just shrugged and decided to go with the flow. I went in line and followed the other ponies to get „dressed“.