Dane was just an ordinary brony. Nothing spectacular about him. He never thought he'd see the day that ponies appeared in the real world. He also never thought that he would go to Equestria. But right now, he wished it was under better circumstances.
At first, the government probably considered them hostile. Like an invading alien race. Their peaceful nature confused the government and the common people at first. But not the fans. Oh no, we were as giddy as schoolgirls. It didn't take long for the involved government officials to learn what they really were, and about their (now-obviously-not) fictitious nature. They were probably laughing at the notion of a cartoon having become real, but when they finally saw the proof and understood, it probably made them quake in their boots.
For something that was naught but fiction had suddenly become reality. That left a lot of explaining to do. And the ponies themselves didn't help much in that department, because to them it was just 'magic.' But the common people needed an explanation. Scientists suggested alternate universes, and that the ponies were proof of their many theories. Philosophers argued that our creations were always real, somewhere, somehow. And religious figures tried to use this as proof of their various gods' existences. Perhaps if enough people willed something to existence, it would become real.
Now you'd think the 'mane six' would have been the first to come to our world. Or maybe just Twilight Sparkle. But it was actually a very weird selection of first-contact ponies. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Lyra Heartstrings. While Lyra had the most obvious reasons to come here (let's face it, we don't even need to say why), Rainbow Dash's reasons were a bit of a mystery. Maybe her ability to fly everywhere gave her a knack for exploring new places. Maybe she wanted to see if she could out-fly a fighter jet. Or maybe, just maybe, she came because of Pinkie. Perhaps to protect her friend… or for the opportunity of pranking a whole new race of creatures. And Pinkie Pie… that Pinkie Pie… that crazy party pony, her intentions were anyone's guess. Who really knows what goes on in that insane head of hers? But what we do know is that she finally, for real this time, completely and utterly, gave the ultimate proverbial middle finger to that invisible fourth wall she's been looking at us through this whole time.
Let's roll back the clock a few weeks.
Twas an ordinary Sunday afternoon. In a suburb of Chicago. In an ordinary park with trees and grass, when out of the blue, a small blast occurred from which a small orb of white light appeared. It was about two feet in diameter, and floated over the ground by about three feet, almost looking like a miniature sun or star. As far as we know there was no one around to see it when it appeared. And then, from said orb, sprang a big pink blob.
The pony we know as Pinkie Pie was the first one through, as if she was trying to make a point about the fourth wall. Then came Lyra, then Rainbow. They looked around and found themselves in a place not terribly unfamiliar. Trees and grass, they may as well have not gone anywhere at all! The problems started when Dash attempted exploration. For whatever reason, her idea of exploration was 'fly in one direction until I see something.' And of course, she flew straight into heavy traffic, and caused a five car pileup.
Naturally, the police were called, and that's when first contact was made. The first officer to see our colorful friends was so dumbstruck by what he was seeing that he simply froze up in shock. Dash was hovering in front of the him, talking to him with what she considered an adequate first-contact introduction.
"Yeah, I get that reaction a lot! Name's Rainbow Dash!" She announced, posing to display herself.
The cop's partner, a rather angry female officer, made the assumption that these aliens had put him under some kind of mind control, so she pointed her sidearm at the rainbow one.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HIM?! STOP IT!" She said angrily, out of sheer panic.
"What? I'm just sayin' hello!" Dash replied, shrugging.
Needless to say, Pinkie and Lyra came over to see the commotion, and just added to Officer Haggerty's problems for today. She freaked out, briefly muttering a string of curse words mixed with incoherent babble, but thankfully didn't fire any shots.
"HI! MYNAMESPINKIEPIE! WHATSYOURS?!"
"STAY BACK!" Haggerty motioned with her gun in her shaky grip.
"Stay Back? That's a funny name!" To this, Haggerty simply stared back in angry confusion at the bouncy pink being in front of her. "Awwww… somepony's in a bad mood! Let's see if we can turn that frown upside down!" Pinkie said, turning her head upside down to make her point.
"Oh, leave her alone Pinkie!" Lyra shouted, "You're scaring her!"
"So what are you supposed to be, anyway?" Dash asked, noticing the uniforms.
"I am an officer of the law!" Haggerty shouted.
"Is that like… uh… a sheriff?"
"Yes…? Wait, no… I'm not a sheriff! I'm a police officer." Haggerty was starting to calm down, and finally holstered her pistol. But she then noticed a certain mint green mare contentedly examining Officer Carroll's body, who, by the way, remained catatonic for the rest of the day. "What's she doing to him?!"
"I dunno, what are you doing, Lyra?" Dash asked.
"Just looking, you humans are so fascinating!" Lyra said, holding the officer's hand in her hooves.
At this, Haggerty finally decided to radio in this rather strange occurrence. From there, all sorts of government officials were informed. The media got wind of this pretty fast, and soon the dimension-travelling trio were on every TV, radio, and webpage. The bronies hidden away in various nooks and crannies within the media made sure that the ponies were portrayed in a positive light, while not outright stating that a cartoon had become real, at least not on the mainstream news. They didn't want to start a panic. But of course the fans were all squee-ing… and the cloppers were all creaming their jeans.
A random spattering of any available political figures went in to meet with the ponies. As well as the military, who maintained a steady suspicion of these aliens. The military had also cordoned off the 'portal' as they called it, apparently it was a stably-open two-way doorway to their world. But no human from the military dared step foot near that white floating orb, which, despite its bright white sun-like appearance, produced only a small amount of light in the dark of the night. The only people who would have jumped at the chance were being held away by armed soldiers. Eventually one lowly Private informed his commanding officer about the whole 'they're a cartoon' thing, which, of course, the Captain did not believe. But the huddled masses of people outside the temporary fence the military had erected were yelling some such nonsense, so the Captain decided to go ask some of them, out of sheer curiosity.
"YOU! Gay pride T-shirt guy!" Captain Gomez shouted and pointed at a random person in the crowd, who was as close to the chainlink fence as he could get without being shot.
"SIR YES SIR!" The random guy huffed and mock saluted, puffing out his chest beneath his Rainbow Dash T-shirt.
Gomez rolled his eyes in annoyance. "What do you know about these aliens?"
"They're not aliens, man! They're ponies from a TV show!"
"PONIES?! A TV show with ponies? What the hell kind of a TV show is that supposed to be?!"
"My Little Pony, man, only the BEST SHOW EVER!" He said the last part extra loud and the whole crowd cheered.
"You sissy maries watch a TV show for little girls!?" He shouted at the crowd, who were quick to start shouting back in anger. The unruly crowd angered Captain Gomez, but this information was useful. He made sure it got to the top. Once the info got there, things calmed down considerably. Although certain people were even more concerned with the rationality of cartoons being real all of a sudden, it was understood now.
That these were peaceful creatures who sought to befriend us humans.
The next day, a press conference was held.
"OK, our guests will be taking questions now." The suit-wearing man on stage said to the crowd of news reporters.
Pinkie Pie was quick to jump up to the podium, using her forelegs to hold her up on it, while her hind legs just dangled in the air because she was too short for it.
The crowd was a sea of reporters clamoring to get Pinkie's attention. "Umm… OOH! That one! Right there!" She pointed a hoof at a reporter.
"Ms. Pie, of all the possible worlds or dimensions you could have gone to, why did you pick ours?"
"Well, because you humans are just so super-duper-awesome!" Pinkie wasted no time in moving on, "Um... YOU!"
"HI PINKIE!"
"HI RANDOM HUMAN!"
"Where are the rest of the elements?"
"Oh! Well Twilight had to stay behind to make sure the portal would stay open! Applejack and Rarity were both busy with work, and Fluttershy was just too scared to come!" Pinkie pointed at another reporter, "YOU!"
"Do you guys know what you are… to us… here… you know what I mean?"
"Of course we do silly! How else would we have known about you guys?!" The crowd murmured loudly at this. Clearly, they didn't expect that answer.
Lyra walked up to the microphone Pinkie was intended to speak into, and cleared her throat loudly to silence the crowd, "You know, in our world, you guys are just myths written about in all sorts of fictional books and novels, so it's about the same thing!" She had a big smile plastered on her face, still completely enthralled by all the humans.
"Um… YOU!" Pinkie pointed.
"Can we go to Equestria?!"
"Well, DUH!" Pinkie answered.
"Buck yea!" Dash confirmed with a hoof pump.
"Finally, Bon-Bon won't be able to call me crazy anymore…" Lyra muttered to herself, the microphone in front of her amplifying it for the reporters to hear.
The rest of the press conference went on with endless questions about the ponies themselves, some questions being way too personal…
"I am NOT a lesbian!"
…and others being about Equestria, politics, and technology. Lyra and Rainbow tried as much as they could to provide answers for the more complicated questions, but Pinkie Pie's vague and confusing answers for such questions never ceased to irritate the non-brony members of the media (and perhaps even a few of the brony ones too).
Now this is where we meet our protagonist, if we could even call him that.
"DANE! Get off your ass! You have a visitor!" An angry male voice shouted from another room in the office.
Dane grumbled at his boss, got out of his office chair, and looked beyond the walls of his cubicle. An older man in a class-A military get-up was marching towards Dane.
"Are you Dane Rodriguez?" The man asked, completely butchering his last name.
"Yeah, that's me."
"My name is General Jameson." They shook hands. A general indeed, three stars, and he was wearing his helmet, which looked completely out of place with his class-A's on. "We need your help deciphering this book." He handed Dane a large, old, hardcover book.
"What language is it?" Dane asked, instinctively.
"We don't know."
Dane took the book but only glanced at it. "There must be some mistake, I'm a linguist, I translate mostly Spanish transcripts. You want me to translate an unknown language?"
"That's right," Jameson said flatly, looking Dane square in the eye.
"Isn't that a job for… I don't know… a decoder or something?"
"Boy! We haven't had a good DEcoder since the cold war!"
"Alright then, why me? Surely there must be someone more qualified."
"We picked you because you're one of them 'brownies.' And don't call me Shirley, boy!"
As embarrassed as Dane was at having his little secret suddenly, and loudly, exposed to all of his on-looking coworkers, he was much more irritated that the good general had mispronounced his self-claimed title. "It's pronounced 'bronies.' " Not that complicated, he thought.
"Whatever! That book belongs to one of the aliens."
Dane finally examined the tome he held. It was maybe 200 pages or so, and was bound in a plain red cover. Old and worn, it could easily have been mistaken for an old novel. A far cry from the fancifully gilded Elements of Harmony book. The cover had a single symbol embossed into it, what looked to be a simple silhouette of a human. The spine of the book held only the title, written in foreign glyphs and symbols, with little splotches of black, as though the embossed letters had once been painted.
"I'm guessing it's ancient Equestrian."
"Can you read it?"
"Of course not. Why couldn't you just ask the ponies what it says?"
"The one called 'Lyre' said that it detailed how to open the door to this world. But she said she could barely read any of it apart from the diagrams and figures for the… 'magic.' " General Jameson air-quoted his last word.
"Did you believe her?"
"Well I sure-as-hell didn't…" He crossed his arms and gave a displeased look. "But my colleagues all bought it."
"Does Lyra know you have this book?"
"No. She doesn't. Now can you translate it, or what?"
"I'll give it my best shot, but it's probably going to take a while, especially without help."
"Don't worry about that, I've commissioned this whole department to work on it. You'll be in charge."
Dane stared slack-jawed and wide-eyed at the man in front of him. Him? In charge of his whole department?!
"Now get to work! If you need any more resources, just give me a call." The General pulled a business card out of his pocket and pointed it at Dane.
Two weeks later.
Dane's coworker Amber walked gingerly up to his cubicle with a slip of paper in her hand and a smile on her face. She was an attractive 30-something brunette, whose presence always brightened up the room.
Unfortunately for Dane, she was married.
"I think we have the title pinned!" She excitedly said to Dane.
"Is it 'Human World Entry' like I thought?"
"Um, no. We're thinking that it's… 'A Human for Ponies.'" She said, handing him the paper. "We already had the 'human' word, but now we're sure that this…" She pointed to a group of symbols on the paper, one of which was a horseshoe, "is the word 'ponies.' And the word we think is 'for' pops up a lot in places where you might think it'd be used, so we're betting that's what it is."
"Well that's good news! 'A Human for Ponies'… I guess that makes sense. Kinda like a 'How to Get a Human for Dummies.' " Dane chuckled at his own quip.
"It's a weird title, don't you think?"
"It's a weird language."
"Touché."
A few days later.
Throughout history, whenever two nations met, they either clashed on the battlefields of war, or they coexisted peacefully through diplomacy and trade. Nobody could say this scenario would be any different. America is still a super power, we have nukes, that's our trump card. Of course, it's also our last ditch option.
No, he told himself, it won't come to that. They're peaceful, after all, they haven't had a war in a thousand years… or so he was told. And even that was because an evil being threatened to blot out the sun and shroud the land in eternal darkness, a very acceptable reason for war, especially by human standards. Eternal night, what a terrible way for a world to die, to be slowly frozen and starved to death. Interesting, he mused, that it sounded a lot like the conditions of a theoretical nuclear winter. Perhaps these ponies weren't so different from us after all. Honestly, he didn't know what to believe. But what he knew was more important. They ripped a hole in space-time and crossed into another dimension. With magic. That was scary. 'Magic' is just a word that we call something we don't understand, technology we have yet to discover. And that's why it was scary. It was an unknown.
He always got a little jittery before such meetings with other important politicians, but that was only natural, and once he was in the moment his jitters went away. But Barack was downright nervous now. Naturally, he had been briefed by several experts about everything he needed to know about Equestria. Although he wouldn't use the word 'experts' to describe the geeky bunch of 'brownies' that had briefed him.
Anyway, it was quickly apparent that his guest of honor was supposedly an immortal goddess, who was more than capable of using magic, and who, at some points in the past, had sent an enemy to the moon and cast another into stone. And no human yet knew how to disarm a unicorn. He was going to be meeting an (essentially) armed dictator, on good faith, being unarmed himself. He may as well have been dropping by a war lord's house to negotiate peace.
Of course the media had to make a big show of it. Barack watched as this Princess 'Celestia' arrived at the White House in a gilded chariot drawn by four of her personal guard ponies, all four of them white unicorns in golden armor, perfectly matching the chariot and its inhabitant. A band provided a fanfare for her majesty's arrival. His wife Michelle, ever by his side, whispered in his ear, "Well, this is it." TV cameras rolled as the chariot drew to a stop and crowds cheered from behind the fence, across the lawn. Barack had been advised to bow to her, but he refused. While the potential insult to the princess could be detrimental, is was a chance he had to take in order to represent his country to his fullest, he could not afford to appear subservient to a race of horses. He had also been advised that they occasionally shook hooves, like shaking hands. He hoped that it would be an acceptable greeting for pony royalty.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Princess!" He practically yelled over the still-going fanfare. He looked her in the eye, meeting her almost perfectly on eye level. He extended his hand to her hoping to just get past the greetings.
Celestia's ever-present regal smile did not falter, but a quick movement of her eyes told the president that this was indeed an unusual greeting, but before he could panic she lifted her right forehoof from the ground and offered it to him. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well."
He carefully took her hoof in hand. Grabbing a hoof was weird enough, but this one was wearing a solid gold shoe, not like a nailed-on horseshoe, but more akin to a sandal with a little bit of a high heel, held on by a thin golden strap around the back of her hoof.
After the meet-and-greets were over with, Barack finally had some alone time with his guest of honor in the Oval Office. They each seated themselves on two couches opposite each other. He couldn't help but think that she was sort of laying on her stomach like his dog Bo might do to make himself comfortable there. A servant placed a tea tray on the coffee table between the president and the princess, served the tea to both, then left. They were alone now.
She didn't touch her tea. He had his politician's smile and she her regal one. They looked at each other and both breathed a tiny sigh of relief that seemed to say 'finally.'
Then Celestia actually said it, "Finally. Now we can discuss your immediate, unconditional surrender to Equestria," in her usual regal tone.
The president's politician smile remained plastered on his face as his mind began to race into a panic. The only thing that betrayed his poker face was a visible and very audible gulp.
Celestia held a hoof to her muzzle as she giggled, "Gotcha!"
One week later.
It was the end of the day, the office was already empty, save for Dane, who was reclined in his office chair with his feet up on his desk. He was reading a news article on Twilight Sparkle and her visit to the Library of Congress.
Amber strolled up to his cubicle. "Working hard?"
"Ha, well, I can't do much but wait now."
"Yea, the guys just about have it worked out. They're thinking tomorrow or the day after."
"So they say. I don't think anyone cares anymore, not even the General. Not since more ponies started coming here."
"Isn't that so strange? Them, living among us?"
"And us living with them… yea, it's very strange. I never in my wildest dreams thought it would actually happen." Dane pondered what it would be like to live in Equestria.
"Oh you crazy bronies… Do you want to go there? To Equestria?"
Dane chuckled and gave her a sly look. "I'm on the waiting list."
Amber just stared intently at him. "Dane, there's something bothering me about that book."
"Like what?"
"Well, the first half of the book seems to be the instructions to create the portal to this dimension. We still don't understand any of this 'magic' crap, but the diagrams are a dead giveaway. But the second half is… different. We still don't know enough about the language to figure out what it is, but it's certainly something different."
Dane shook his head. "I dunno."
"There are a lot of lists. And numbered sections…"
"Rules, maybe? Hopefully that new algorithm Jeff is working on will crack this language. We'll see what he comes up with tomorrow."
"Yeah… hopefully…"
The next day.
Dane wasn't at work. It was the end of the work day, and Amber had just found out something vital. Something she had to tell Dane. But he wasn't there, and he wasn't the type to miss work, especially not after having been given the whole department on a silver platter. She tried calling his cell phone but it just went straight to voicemail. It must have been off. If he was blowing off work and everyone else, then there was only one place he could be. Or hopefully he wasn't there already.
In a panicked frenzy, Amber stormed out of the office building and got in her red Honda Civic. She sped off towards the 'station.' She raced through the parking lot and pulled up right next to the door of the brand new building. Opening the car door, she quickly fumbled to remove her high heels. She abandoned her car there, leaving it running. Amber ran inside, looking around for Dane, and forcing her way past the crowds of people there, shouting his name all the while until she finally got to the departure platform.
She spotted him. "Dane!" She yelled as she ran past the line of people. "DANE!" She yelled again just as she was grabbed by a soldier who was guarding the portal.
Dane was just about to step into it, but he heard her this time and recognized her voice. He looked around until he spotted her being held firmly by a soldier nearby, squirming around in his grasp.
"Dane! Don't go in there! …The… the rest of the book… 'A Human for Ponies,' it's… it's a cookbook! It's a cookbook!"
Dane's face of confusion was instantly washed over by complete and utter shock. He looked quickly between the ponies, the gazes Pinkie and Dash were giving him confirmed his fear. Lyra's face was questionable, being either confusion or just a different version of the wide-eyed 'he knows' look the other two were giving him. He quickly acted on this new information, dropping his suitcase and trying to run for it, but it was too late. Before he knew it Rainbow Dash bucked him in the chest, and he fell into the portal.
FWOOOOOP.
And this brings us back to the present.
Dane was laying on the rickety cot in his small stone-walled cell. There were no windows in this place, some sort of artificial light was the only reason it wasn't pitch black. Dane has had nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and ponder his situation for the past two days. Of course he could only guess it was two days, judging by how many times the lights were turned off to simulate night.
The clip-clop of hooves coming towards the cell alerted Dane of the guard, but he did nothing, still lying down with his hands behind his head. Dane heard the clack of a ceramic plate being placed on the stone floor, and then the scrape of it being pushed under the iron bar door.
"Please eat somethin' mister. Ya ain't had nothin' to eat for two days!" Dane looked over to the deceptively cute 'guard.' Her voice and her face suggested genuine concern for Dane. And for a split second, Dane actually believed it was so. "We wouldn't want ya ta lose weight…" With that comment her innocence in Dane's mind was instantly shattered, again. Her tone was neither sinister nor angry, but quite flat. But there certainly was no concern for his well being in that voice.
But he was hungry, if he had any will left in him, he could have starved himself to death, but his spirit had been crushed. Dane got up from the cot and looked at the plate of food. It was meat, no doubt about it. Cooked red meat with a couple lines of fat through it, but no visible bones, it looked identical to any delicious steak, and it was lovingly garnished with hay. While Dane's spirit was destroyed, he still shuddered to think what kind of meat that was. The thought made him want to wretch. The guard gave him an adorable pleading look, and that was all it took to make Dane give in. He reached down and picked up some hay, and began munching on it. This satisfied Applebloom, she smiled and trotted away, leaving Dane struggling to chew the hay that was stained with the grease of the questionable meat. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he chewed.