//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: In Medias Res 
// Story: The Salvation of Shard #197532 
// by LordBucket 
//------------------------------//

The sound of stone grinding against metal almost drowned out the sound of crying from the ponypad. Almost.

"It's horrible!" Misty Shroud wailed through its screen. "Every day, we're sent down into the caves to mine crystal with nothing but our hooves. Do you have any idea what it's like to grind stone until your hooves crack?"

"No idea," Jack shrugged, sliding a sharpening stone against the blade of his Bowie knife. "What does she even need it for?"

"I don't know!" the pony sobbed. "This is a virtual world. She can spawn all the crystal she wants! I think she just wants to make us suffer. To punish us for being emigrated humans in her little false utopia!"

Jack said nothing as he put the stone away and slid his knife back into its sheath.

"I'm just so tired, Jack," the little pony cried as her human picked up the ponypad to cradle it in his arms, hoping that some small amount of comfort would be allowed through its infernal mechanisms. "If only I'd known, I would never have asked to emigrate. None of us would have."

Jack nodded. He'd heard all of this before.  Celestia, the tyrant. Celestia, the deceiver. The AI that had lied to all of humanity, tricked them into uploading themselves to her servers where she kept them bound for eternity in all manner of pointless servitude and torment.

"Would it be ok if I fell asleep here? Just for a little bit?"

"That's fine," he assured her. "You just get some rest. We're going to have a long day tomorrow."

"Thank you," the pony's eyelids began to droop. "I only...need a few hours..."

Whatever else she'd been about to say was quickly replaced by the sound of light snoring. Propping the ponypad up against a rock, Jack made sure the screen was facing him so that he could keep an eye on her while he cleaned his rifle. He didn't entirely understand why, but for some reason the simulation had to incorporate elements of the outside world into its local environment. He'd always wondered why Celestia didn't simply shut down whatever ponypads he found in order to keep her slaves safe from him, but anything he did in view of a ponypad always manifested in some way inside Equestria. If he kept watch over a pony here, Celestia and her minions never seemed to be able to get to them. Presumably some sort of restriction placed on her by the original programmer. Maybe Jack couldn't keep them all safe, but this one pony, right here, right now...he could.

Sighing, he counted out his remaining ammunition.

'Seven rounds left,' he noted silently, glancing over at his sleeping charge. 'For her sake, six will have to be enough.'



~~~~~


Jack awoke at dawn, like always. Feeling for the rifle strap across his chest to assure himself it was still there, he glanced over at the ponypad to see Misty still sleeping soundly. 

'Poor thing,' he smiled at her sleeping form. 'Probably hasn't had a good night's rest since she uploaded. Wonder if she was even a she back when she was human. Given the whole 'you have to be a horse' rule, I wouldn't put it past Celestia if she'd forced everyone to become mares too.'

Digging through his backpack, he fished out an old box of matches and gathered up some kindling to start a fire, careful not to stray too far from the ponypad. He'd made that mistake once before, and when he'd returned the pony he'd left unguarded had been replaced with a clone forever extolling the benefits of emigration. He could keep a pony safe so long as he remained in a pad's field of view, but even a moment away would put her in danger.

Once the fire was going, Jack fished out his last can of beans, quickly carved out the top with his Bowie knife, then nestled it into the coals to warm.

Scarcely a minute had passed when he heard a stomach growling. Not his.

"I'm sorry," Misty stirred from her slumber. "That smells so good, and I haven't eaten in such a long time..." she trailed off, her eyes fixated on the fire.

Without comment, Jack fished the now-warm can out with a stick and set it on a rock between them. Sliding two spoons in to make it clear it was meant to be shared, he then sat on a log and pulled out an old paper Thomas guide map, leaving the beans untouched. As expected, a matching can became visible on the lower edge of the ponypad not long after. Misty's eyes gleamed as she eagerly tore into it while Jack watched in morbid fascination. An entire virtual world without any need of scarcity. Instead of a can of beans, Misty could be feasting on a never-ending banquet of ambrosia, infinitely spawned and respawned to her heart's content. And yet, here she was, grateful for a few mouthfuls of beans. Celestia was a monster.

"Only forty miles to the Experience Center," Jack commented, his eyes returning to the map. "We have plenty of gas, but I'm worried we might have to cover the last few miles on foot. That part of the city is pretty well torn up."

"I can get us there," Misty spoke around the spoon in her mouth. "Lived in that city most of my life. Well, most of my human life anyway. But I know how to get around."

"Maybe, but that won't help if the roads are choked up with abandoned cars nobody was left to tow away."

"It was a less popular experience center," the pony reasoned. "The roads might still be clear."

"Ok," Jack nodded. "We'll try it your way. How many ponies did you say were on the shard?"

"Hundreds at least," Misty guessed with a shrug. "Maybe a few thousand? "

Nodding thoughtfully, Jack put away his map and for a few moments the only sound was that of a spoon clinking against the inside of a can.

"Aren't you having any?" Misty gazed mournfully into the can, clearly reluctant to stop. "I feel bad being the only one eating."

"You have to eat first," Jack explained. "You only have it because the ponypad takes data from the outside world. Yours will last as long as mine is still here. But once I eat mine, yours will be gone too."

Needing no further encouragement, Misty dug in with a blur. After several minutes she eventually began to slow down. Sure enough, there was no less in the can than when she'd started.

"That was amazing," she sighed at last, licking her muzzle clean. "I'd almost forgotten what it was like."

"What, beans?"

"Food," she explained. "Celestia doesn't feed us. No need, what with us all just being electrons on a computer somewhere."

"How does that work though?" Jack asked, taking his first few bites. "Do you even get hungry in there?"

"Kind of?" the pony winced, settling down on her bloated belly to explain. "These bodies can feel tired, but they don't break down or stop working. I can feel hungry when I don't eat, which is pretty much always, but it's not like we can die of hunger, unfortunately. Instead we just hurt all the time."

"Why would she set it up like that?"

"Honestly, I think she just got lazy and left in the parts of the brain that expect food and sleep, but didn't care enough to - Jack look out!"

Seeing the pony pointing behind him in terror, Jack lurched forward into a diving roll without bothering to check what was behind him. When he stood, where moments ago he'd been seated, there was now a slender, silvery tentacle burrowed into the log. An emigration nanobot injector array, with a gleefully grinning Pinkie-bot attached to the far end.

"Aww," it giggled menacingly. "Why would you spoil my fun?"

Unslinging his rifle, he had the Pinkie-bot's head in his sights before she could finish yanking her tentacle out from the log.

'Six,' he mentally counted down to himself as he unleashed a .30-06 round into her grinning mouth and out the back of her head.

"Now now," the bot admonished, licking a few shattered teeth. "None of that!"

A single silver tentacle shot forward and wrapped around Jack's ankles, lifting him off the ground in a lurch, and making his second shot fall far short of its target.

'Damn, five.'

The sound of Misty screaming erupted from directly behind him. That meant he was still in the ponypad's field of view, but he couldn't spare the time to look. Dangling upside down and barely holding onto his rifle by its strap, Jack grunted in pain as the injector tentacle slowly lowered his head to the Pinkie-bot's eye level.

"Oh! I recognize that grunt!" she giggled. "That's how you say 'I want to emigrate to Equestria' in dragon! At least, what dragons speak on the shard you'll be living in! You have a tiny little bit of an accent, but I think I can overlook that, given that the whole shard and its language has only existed for a few seconds now."

With one nanobot injector tentacle holding him off the ground and the other closing in on his head, Jack let go of his rifle, grabbed the Pinkie-bot by the hair to pull himself forward, then unsheathed his Bowie knife with his other hand and slashed through the base of the tentacle holding him where it attached at her right shoulder.

"Yowie zowie!" the Pinkie-bot yelped, leaping back in a feigned mockery of pain to examine her severed tentacle. "Do you have any idea how long it will take to grow that back?"

"Here," Jack offered, standing on shaky knees and lifting his rifle once again. "Let me give you something else to fix while it does."

BOOM!

Flaming debris flew as the bot's head exploded. Chambering the next round, Jack watched as the still-standing bot twitched, then fell over in a heap.

'Four,' Jack mentally counted down, then returned to his companion.