Sighing with relief, Thomas sits down at his computer after finally finishing the setup for his entertainment room. He’d managed to clear out the second bedroom after his roommate took off to join a crew of asteroid miners. He now had an entire room to use for his new Virtual/Augmented reality glasses he picked up a couple months ago. While Thomas wasn’t exactly a shut in, he really didn’t get out much as he worked temp contract programming jobs straight from home. His apartment wasn’t large by any means but it was comfortable and thankfully vermin free albeit looked like it belonged in a 20th century thug drama, meaning 10 story brick and mortar instead of the nice 50+ story plasteel structures surrounding it. This fact plus it being cheaper to live here gave Thomas the feeling of being close to his hobby; collecting and converting old 20th and 21st century media into today’s formats. So far his collection had reached about 750 DVDs all having been converted into the current format of Holopane and then sealed in and aircare system to prevent any future degradation.
Having finally settled down and gotten comfortable again there was a knock at his door, and not expecting anyone to come over he grumbled as he got up to answer it. As he opened the door he found an out of breath delivery guy from Walmazon.
Thomas raises his hand in greeting, “Hey man, need some water or something” Thomas asked in a slightly concerned voice.
“No, No i’m good just give me a sec to catch my breath.”
Thomas waited as the delivery guy finally managed to catch his breath. He finally stood up straight and handed Thomas a signature pad for him to sign and put his thumbprint to. Thomas quickly signed his name and pressed his thumb in the corresponding space getting a cheerful beep saying his print matches their records.
“Here you go sir,” handing Thomas a 3’x2’ box.”I don’t know how you willingly climb to the 5th floor on a daily basis, those stairs are a killer!”
“Stairs? Oh you didn’t see the sign saying the elevator is at the opposite end of the hallway around the corner?” Thomas chuckled wryly at the now exasperated delivery man “ knowing the kids in this building they probably hid the sign behind a potted plant the owner keeps on the ground floor.”
“Oh you have to be frickin kidding me!” he moans as the delivery man’s shoulders slump from exhaustion and annoyance.
“Yep, just follow this hall down that way,” Thomas said, pointing the opposite way the delivery guy came from “and the elevator will be just around the corner, also here’s $10 tip for the trouble.”
“Thanks” says the man as he slowly walks towards his reward for the unnecessary climb up.
Thomas shuts the door and takes his package to his new entertainment room hoping it will be one of his newest purchases. After nearly a year of searching he finally managed to track down someone who was willing to part with a couple complete series’ from the now defunct and barely memorable Hasbro Corporation. They had gone under about 100 years prior when they tried to combine one of their current toy lines with a fairly sophisticated AI program. Due to improper usage or possibly a failure in the programing itself, the toys managed to bring harm to their owners. Grabbing a nearby pair of scissors, Thomas opens the box and sees a purple box under the shipping papers. Slightly hopeful that it will be the Transformer series he had wanted, he was slightly disappointed when he saw a oddly colored rainbow with 6 ponies at the end of it with the title My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic written just above the ponies.
“This box is in great condition for something that should be well over 150 years old!” he exclaimed as he grabbed the shipping papers to make sure they were right. The papers read “1 Master set of the series MLP:FIM”. As he turned back to the box he noticed an envelope that had been hidden by the shipping papers. While the outside of the envelope had nothing, on the inside it had a one-page letter handwritten addressed directly to him.
Dear Mr. Crewe
Thank for purchase this Master Set for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I know you have to be asking yourself what the Tartarus does Master set mean for what we here at Disco Riders Media have sent you. What you have is the discs used for when Hasbro wanted to print new copies of this series making this a one of a kind relic from a bygone era. Our “family” has kept these master discs in as near mint as they could be for generations, and after hearing about your hobby we thought now would be a good time to reintroduce the world to something Interesting and you seems to be just the person to do it. While the discs are quite old they have been expertly preserved so they should function now just as well as when they were first manufactured, meaning you have plenty of time to watch them before converting and sealing them.
Sincerely,
Dean Scions
“Well then, that makes this all the more rare than I thought it was.”
Thomas quickly pulled the set from cardboard box it came in and set it on his desks. Taking a quick look at the box, he saw ten DVD cases marked with their seasons and divider on the right filling up space to allow for more DVDs had there been more seasons. Knowing what these were and how old they were, Thomas decided to not touch them directly so he grabbed his pair of no-touch bracelets. Once on his wrists and powered on, they created a nano-meter thick field around his hands allowing him the dexterity of his fingers without the ability to actually leave anything on the discs. Pulling out the first season he looked at the case, finding a picture of a purple unicorn on the cover with a synopsis of the show and characters on the back. Looking back at the top of the box and the ponies at the end of the rainbow he tries to connect the names to images.
“So we’ve got Rarity, the white unicorn. Pinkie pie, the overly pink one, and if she’s not then I don’t get the writers. Twilight Sparkle, the purple unicorn, who was on the front of the season 1 case so she must be the main character. Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus. Applejack, the only one wearing anything and comes off as an ancient cowgirl.” Thomas shakes his head in bewilderment at that. “And last but not least Rainbow Dash, another obvious name which if I'm wrong will cause me to want to smack the creators!”
Looking back at the case in his hand he opens it up seeing a four fairly non-descript DVDs with a simple labels saying MLP:FIM S01 E01-07, MLP:FIM S01 E08-13,MLP:FIM S01 E14-19, and MLP:FIM S01 E20-26.
“Well That’s a simple system to understand their order, since it doesn’t look like there's a list of the episode titles in the case hopefully there will be one on the disc themselves.”
Popping disc 1 out of the case and slowly placing it into the tray of his custom built DVD player in his PC, he closes it and listens for the tell tale sound of it being read correctly. Soon a window pops up on his display and shows him the content of the disc. Seven video files with the same naming scheme as the disc itself and a simple text file containing the episode titles.
“You know what let’s do what Mr. Scions suggested and watch a few of these before I get started on the conversion and since I finally got this room setup might as well test the VAR Glasses as well”. Thomas quickly loads the Virtual/Augmented Reality program and loaded in the first episode named “Friendship is Magic Part 1” and set it for a thirty second delay. After having made sure nothing is in the way and grabbing the controller, Thomas stands in the middle of the room on a simple 360 degree treadmill and puts the glasses on and waits. ten seconds later he’s greeted with a table and a book. “Not quite what I expected the show to open with…” The book slowly opens with a woman narrating the story of the two sisters and a brief history of Equestria. As the story finishes the Intro song starts and nearly cause Thomas to fall over as the constant scene changes showing the characters kept whizzing by. “ I really don’t know how this works but being able to see beyond what a 2d image would show is great. This is the most impressive program ever!”
As the theme ended he was greeted with the sight of Twilight Sparkle Walking towards him, he quickly walked out of her probable path know it wasn’t necessary but it still felt better know he wouldn’t have to possible watch a character walk right through himself. Twilight was quickly stopped by 3 ponies who asked if she was going to a Moondancers party but she quickly made something up about studying and took off. Pointing the controller in his left hand at Twilight and pushing a button he selects her as a follow target and get pulled quickly behind her. Knowing who she is Thomas knows the scene would have followed her anyway but he didn’t quite know at what pace and position so making her the follow target kept him with her the whole trip. She quite quickly came to a tower and ran up the winding staircase quite thankful he didn’t need to climb that himself. As she came to the top yelling for someone named Spike she through the doors open. “Ooh that had to hurt” Thomas says to himself as even he heard the thump from the other side of the door when it was opened.
Thomas walked in ahead of Twilight seeing a small purple and green lizard laying stunned on the ground. “Well I would guess that’s Spike.”Thomas mutters. Twilight was quick to enter the room, but it took her a minute to even notice Spike and hadn’t even noticed she smacked him with the door, only wondering what was stuck on his tail. Thomas stopped paying attention to them for a few minutes and wandered around the room taking in all the detail that VAR managed to fill in. Suddenly finding himself on the second floor next to twilight as she read out loud about some mythical mare in the moon. Thomas turned towards Spikes voice as he answer Twilight and noticed that Spike was in quite the precarious position.
Suddenly finding himself on the first floor again due to the tether, he hadn’t noticed how Twilight had gotten down so fast to save Spike. Curious about the cause he pushed the pause button on the controller and nothing happened, Twilight continued her dictation to spike and Thomas stared confusedly at the scene continuing to play out. “That's really weird,” he tried to rewind it and still nothing, ”Okay the other functions work but not those two. I wonder if it’s due the age of the files, or something wrong with VAR?” Thomas had just heard the word “books” come from spike when the world went black for a moment.
As the color comes back, Thomas notices Twilight’s mane blowing in the breeze and realized they’re moving. Taking a look around to get his bearings, he looks down and sees land far below him. His fear of height kicks in and he screams. Part of him knows he’s still in his apartment on the ground but the now panicking half overwhelms him and he faints.
A short time later, Thomas wakes up and sees his apartment around him. He lets out a sigh of relief. Realizing he still heard the show, he felt for the glasses on his head giving them a quick feel to see if he had broken them in the fall. Not noticing anything wrong with them, he stands up and steps upon the treadmill again and pushes the glasses back down. Immediately upon the show coming back into focus, Thomas is inundated with the sound of a part horn and a very Pink pony.
“Surprise! Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie and I threw this party just for you!” Thomas visibly freaks out and moves quickly to the left of her. Seeing that she didn’t follow he heaved a sigh of relief that she hadn’t been talking to him, but to Twilight Sparkle who he’d been standing in. Pinkie quite quickly broke into a spiel about why she threw the party but Thomas only got about half the information as he was trying to take in the absurdity of the library being in a tree.
He turned around just in time to see Twilight grab a bottle of something that didn’t look like a drink and pour it into a cup. He busted a gut laughing when he realized she had just drunk a large amount of hot sauce, burst into flames, and ran off. “Weird I figured I would have followed her to a new scene even without the tethering.” Thomas decided to wander near Pinkie to see what she was up to and just found her chatting happily with anyone and every pony in the room.
Thomas kept his distance as Pinkie wandered around the room and made a game of it trying to dodge and weave through the crowd without touching or passing through anything. Things got a bit weird when moving out of Pinkie’s way though. His left hand phased through a bottle tipping it over, spilling it onto the table.
Pinkie stopped dead in her tracks and looked at the bottle then slightly to the right of said table where Thomas was standing with a perplexed look on her face. Thomas was bewildered but quickly passed it off as coincidence as Pinkie pulled a roll of paper towels out of her mane and cleaned up the mess. As the party went on it time itself seemed a bit weird as Thomas watched Pinkie go from playing one game to another with random pony after random pony. Things finally seem to calm down allowing Pinkie to get Spike to tell Twilight it was time to go watch the sun rise.
After another quick scene change, Thomas finds himself standing outside a large round building. “Hmm, Town hall, maybe an auditorium? I guess this is where things get weird”. Thomas quickly finds himself standing next to Twilight and Pinkie as they listen to the officiator announce the proceedings. Thomas watches as the curtain to the balcony is pulled open to no one. “Yep I was right this is where it gets weird.” As the ponies around Thomas begin to panic he just watches the balcony, waiting only a few moments for a blueish purple cloud to explode into a large black pony wearing blue armor.
“Nightmare moon!” Twilight gasps.
“Oh my beloved subjects it’s been so long since I’ve seen your precious little sun loving faces.”
“What did you do with our Princess!?” Rainbow Dash shouted as she tried to take off to confront the villain, but was quickly stopped by Applejack as she grabbed her by the tail.
“Hahahaha. Am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?” Nightmare moon haughtily asks the room.
“Ooh ooh ooh, more guessing games. Um Hokey Smokes, how about Queen Meanie, no Black Snooty Black Snooty” Pinkie was cut off there as a cupcake was jammed into her mouth.
“Does my crown no longer count now that I’ve been imprisoned for a thousand years?” Nightmare moon moved quickly from scaring Fluttershy to caressing Rarity. “Did you not recall the legends, did you not see the signs?
“I did and I know who you are.” Twilight states matter-of-factly, forcing Nightmare moon to face her. “You’re the mare in the moon, Nightmare Moon!” The room gasps.
“Well well well, someone remembers me. Then you also know why I’m here?”
“You’re here to, to” Twilight looks around nervously.
“Hahahaha. Remember this day little ponies for it was your last. For this moment forth The Night will last FOREVER. Hahahahaha” Nightmare Moon continues to laugh as her ethereal mane calls for lightning.
Thomas’ vision goes black as the episode ends and he removes the VAR glasses and places them on the desk. “That was better than I was expecting! After a quick lunch, on to episode 2.”