//------------------------------// // A hopefully not normal day // Story: Cause and Effect // by MoondustIsPoison //------------------------------// The Magi-net is much like the internet, including the dark and dangerous world that lies below it's friendly enough exterior. I have been scowering the various levels of the net for about 4 weeks looking for anything remotely unusual, and up until now I've found very little relevent material, until I found some very suspect looking archived chat records buried in an abandoned database contained within a server unit somewhere in canterlot, I found over 30 separate and disturbing conversations between two anonymous ponies, all of them pertaining to weapons shipments, ideas for infiltration and invasion, or other suspect topics, one of them said something about some kind of creature called a changeling and a request for a means to turn normal creatures into them. I copied the portions of the chats that weren't corrupted and retreated from the database while covering my tracks, it was a huge lead but I still had no location of origin or any identification. **** I had been in ponyville long enough to seem inconspicuous enough, about 4 weeks to be more specific, ive only transformed back to my human form once just for the sake of having feet, I also realised I jad a butt-picture thing,...what were thay called again?... Cutie marks? Yeah i think that's it, I noticed it after I swapped into pony clothes, it looked like a hackjob of a laptop with some unintelligible code onscreen, whatever the fuck it meant was a mystery. Gwen and I had been keeping in touch and Im confident that we are officially BF GF, although by the world's point of view we were a homosexual couple. Today's agenda would include testing the laser thing and meeting with Twilight to fix her computer. ****** First on my agenda was Twilight, mostly because it gave me a chance to plant a bug in her computer, so I could tell wether I could trust Twilight at all or if she was just another of the many enemies I had managed to accumulate. I walked to her place with some screwdrivers, lockpicks, and the bug in my pocket, the bug was basically a microphone and a transmitter wired into a parasitic lead that I would plug into one of the internal ports. I gave the door a firm knock and was greeted with a muffled call to wait a second. I heard a deadbolt being unlocked and was greeted with twilight smiling at me like a crazy person. "You said something about your computer not working?" I said immediately after she opened the door." "I broke something and I've tried everything to fix it, buuut it didn't work so I used my Hphone to send you a message to come and take a look.... Phew" she spatmout the entire sentance in one breath and looked at me with somewhat pleading eyes. "Lemme take a look..." she led me inside and down into her basement, it contained tons of equipment and scientific instruments. She then pointed to the chunky white brick sitting on her desk, the computer was a combined unit, having the cpu, screen, and keyboard all built into the same case, I approached the brick and looked it over, the case was thick metal plating and the screen was curved like that of a tube tv. "Uhhh, how old is this thing?" "Ive had it since I was 14, Celestia gave it to me for research, and I've updated it ever since.... It means a lot to me, so please don't break it," "Got it, Ill get started on this, you probably have other things planed so I don't expect you to stay" "Okay, ill be working on some spells upstairs, come and get me if you need anything" I turned the computer around and whipped out my screwdriver, unscrewed the rear part of the case and looked inside, most of what I could see was dust. I found a vacuum in the corner and blasted out most of it, being rewarded with a clean computer, a giant dust cloud, and some stinging lungs. I checked everything over and found something i could relate to, something popped out, it looked like a ram stick, input it back in it's slot and clipped it in, then I took the bug and plugged into a pci-esque port between the power supply and the motherboard and resealed the case. "Now I wish I had an easy button" I went upstairs and tried to find Twilight. "I fixed it!" I yelled up and heard someone yell something down "Okay, you can leave if you'd like" so I did just that, walked back home and plugged my end of the bug into the computer and left it to record. **** The laser, was pretty complicated and slow to use, but it was doing something. I'd just plugged it in as the manual said, and also got to learn a bit about equestrian engineering, because ponies apparently could wire magic as well as electricity to homes to power various things. After hokling up the rest of the 8 bazillion cables I got an onscreen prompt, I clicked into it and was rewarded with a window dizplaying the build area and the current blueprint, as well as meters labeled "power" and "available magic" both were currently full, i looked to the computer and saw it display a message reading '[PRINT TEST] [yes] [no]', I pushed Yes and moved away from the buisiness end and watched in awe as it did.... jack diddly squat for 2 whole minutes, then I heard fans speed up and finally saw it do something, it outlined a cube and began to fill it in, within a few seconds it finished printing it's equivalent of a test page. "That was kinda cool..." I walked 2 steps and picked up the cube which was hovering in front of the machine, it was composed of many little sections, some of them were different materials and others were different colors or shapes, onscreen it displayed a message that read 'complete' and then promptly opened software for the device, I looked it over and closed it out. I decided to mess with it later and instead go out to find some heavy duty locks to keep my basement secure, and begin looking for work. **** I came back an hour later with some pretty tough locks and mounting brackets, they were supposedly resistent to magic attacks, impacts, drilling, cutting, and picking, and they also protected the door with a force field, the cost me nothing but a small chunk of my sanity, but, it was worth it if nobody got downstairs, the locksmith was a perv and since I was the only one there at the time told me that I could have the locks for free If I 'showed him the goods', I didn't really care all that much about my dignity as a pony, but it was downright creepy to watch him look my bare chest over, as well as watching him reach down.... At that point he was nice enough to let me leave with the box of 4 locks, and as soon as I left the store he locked everything up with magic and closed the blinds, probably to go and Jack himself off. When I got home I installed the locks and went back out to get myself a pack of beer and comtinue asking around for jobs. ***** I was hired by the local bar as their maitenance guy and part time bartender on night shifts. It seemed to be the only place willing to hire me, everyone else turned me down for one reason or other, and It probably had something to do with my butt mark, because everyone wanted to see a picture of it and a quick verbal schpiel about why I wanted a job there, rather than the traditional resumé and cover letter. I could assume the problem was the mark being misaligned with the job I was applying for, at the very least the bar didn't care as much, so long as I could make drinks and listen, the former I could do relatively well, the latter was the reason I was here in the first place. Another plus was the benefit of employee discounts on booze. **** After I arrived home, I checked the bug recorder and found only the occasional echo or enquiring "hmmm", I exited the computer lair again and made myself some cheap ramen-ish food and proceded back to the basement to whittle away the hours messing with the magic printer. **** The next day I had figured out that the printer was slow but quite precise, and could print with Immaculate detail...but only after i dickerd about with it for 4 hours to improve quality. I was glad I had the late shift because that meant I got to sleep till noon. Once I awoke I cleaned up, put on the very obligatory looking uniform, packed some food, did some normal websurfing until 4 in the afternoon. and headed out. The truck fortunately had a ground mode, albeit the suspension was crap it worked and looked pretty cool while I was at it. I arrived at the local bar, which was named "ol waterin' hole pub", I walked in and put my small Adidas pack (i would usually keep ammo in it but for now it was a makeshift lunch bag and purse-ish thing), and set myself up in the back room and waited for a couple minutes for the rest of the night shift to file in so the shifts could change over. After 2 minutes a thick set stallion with a short beard showed up and sat down at the little table near the door to the back room, which also seemed to serve as the breakroom, The stallion was wearing a similar uniform to me, black shirt, black slacks, and a little apron-pocket-thing around his waist. Another 5 minutes and an earth pony mare of bright yellow hue rushed in the door just before she would be considered late for her shift, punched in, and promptly flopped into the other chair at the tiny little table. "Heh, lime, we got us 'nother owl ta keep us company" the thick set stallion said in a mildly stereotypical texan accent. "Oh....cool.....lemme see her" she panted between a few words but soon pulled herself together enough to get up and greet me."Hi, Im Lime as you probly heard, that's chuck, who are ya and why'd ya get a job here?" "I go by Rusty, and I got a job here because I can mix human drinks, and fix stuff for cheap...and because no one else would hire me" "Fancy...where'd ya learn to do that?" "I lived and worked with them for most of my life up till now, I was converted about half a year ago" I hoped my little thrown together answer would be enough. "How'd ya remember all of your recipes? I thought the conversion stuff mixed up your brain?" "It does...although it isn't as potent at one would be led to believe....and I wrote the recipes down on a cheap notepad before I left" "Huh...anyway... Our shift is starting, we should probly get out there" she turned to leave and I followed out into the bar, my job was to fix whatever someone broke, or to mix up one of the human made cocktails that I knew if someone ordered it. **** The first day was pretty lack luster, nobody ordered the stuff I could mix, but I did get to tinker with a cooler when it decided to croak, it was fixed within 20 minutes, 19 of those minutes were figuring out what in the fuck was going on, the other one minute was actually solving the issue...which happened to be a chewed up power lead between the case and the....cooler thingy, although I did get some good opinions on bow humans were viewed in equestria, several ponies remained open minded about the issue, although most seemed to be pretty sold on the idea that we were supposedly evil unless we were turned into ponies or some other obviously government propogated idea. The rest I asked usually just spouted an outright quote from the Conversion bureau ads that Id seen around occasionally on earth. It reminded me of home, and how glad I was that I was living in a place where most people are either well armed, or smart enough to question the stuff being thrown at us by the ponies, the US government was having a hard time keeping some places out of pony control, places like california and some parts of the eastern seabord were rapidly swayed to helping or tolerationg ponies, and subsequently allowed the bureaus in those areas to gain quite the following, the government couldn't really help on the scale needed because of the more pressing matter of the impending doom bubble approaching, the police and coast guard couldn't cope with the numbers, so those places were occupied by ponies and were eventually closed off from the rest of the US, in Colorado, Texas, and several other states, militias forced the bureaus to back off almost immediately after the initial attacks, I had no clue as t the condition of the rest of the world, but I could hazard a guess that it was doing well enough to keep earth and Equus, at a firm stalemate. Once I pulled up to my house and parked my truck in my front yard, I was really feeling like some food, and sleep, but unfortunately i found out that a certain pink prick had decided to cancel those plans, because, as soon as I opened the door, I got a cannon-ful (because that is apparently a valid measurement here) of confetti to my face and general front side "WHAT THE FUCK!?" I really didnt have the patience for this shit. "I told ya that I was throwing a party!" the pink mare said flippantly as she tried to drag me in. "I thought, Breaking And entering Was FUCKING ILLEGAL!?" "Its a party! Dont be such a sour puss.." she made a weird pout face before she forcibly dragged me inside and chucked me onto my dingy couch next to several other invaders of my property. Considering what her info file had said, I would just have to wait until she left, because I quote "She is either rediculously stubborn, extremely stupid, or some combonation thereof." to be fair the party was set up well, but it didn't help the fact that she had broken and entered, at least She hadn't broken into my computer lair...thank fuck. I found the stiffest drink I could on the table and began the process of plastering myself. ***** I woke up on my couch with a completely knocked out pinkie awkwardly flopped across my abdomen and the top of the couch, I smacked her upside the head and woke her up. "Owie....what'ja do that for?" "You broke into my house, and now you have to clean up your fucking mess." I went to go get coffee as i heard a huge racket behind me... "All done!" she beamed at me while I stared completely shitfaced the now clean house, just as it was before she entered. "How in the fuck?!" Pinkie had somehow managed to basically make any evidence that she was ever here, just flat out disapear... The only remnants being a couple housewarming gifts stacked by the door to the basement and herself just standing there "Seeya later aligator!" she left without a trace and left me sitting there trying to comprehend why she used such an outdated method of saying goodbye, and just about everything else about the Creepy pink pony that had just left. "Note to self:if I ever have anything to do with her before I croak, It will be too soon..."