I awoke with a gasp and flailed my limbs around as I struggled to orient myself. My forelegs got snagged on a blanket that had been covering me. The fact that I had forelegs and hindlegs instead of arms and legs only served to heighten my confusion. A small part of my brain took notice of the fact that I was on top of the bed in my Canterlot apartment. My wild flailing got my limbs further entangled with the blanket. With a horse-like neigh of dismay, I slipped off the side of the bed and hit the floor with a painful thud.
It took me another sixty seconds to free myself from the evil blanket. I huffed and puffed, taking a moment to catch my breath. My eyes drifted downwards, soaking in the sight of my changed body. My hands and fingers were gone, replaced by the hard keratin of hooves. I briefly lamented the loss of my ability to give people the middle finger. My body was covered in a dark grey coat of hair and wisps of dark green mane were in the corner of my field of vision.
I wasn’t viewing this through the screen of a PonyPad. This was my actual body. There was only one explanation for this. I had emigrated to Equestria.
I moved my right foreleg experimentally and the limb responded in a manner that felt oddly natural. My foreleg moved about in a range of motion that a real equine body would have found impossible to achieve, but that was minor compared to the other issue that I should be facing.
Going from a bipedal form to a quadrupedal body should have caused the motor cortex center of my brain to flip out. Stroke victims often needed to spend weeks, even months, learning how to walk again. Logically, I should be experiencing roughly the same problem, yet I didn’t seem to have any trouble controlling my new limbs. CelestAI must have done something to account for this.
Badge Unlocked: Welcome to Your New Forever
Unlocked By: You emigrated to Equestria.
Reward: 1,000 bits
The notification hovered in front of my vision. It conveniently disappeared the second that I finished reading it.
A loud cough grabbed my attention. Only then did I realize that I wasn’t alone in the room. Celestia, Red, Suri, and surprisingly Twilight Sparkle were all standing around me in a half circle. Twilight had an apathetic look about her. Most alarming of all was the shit-eating-grin plastered across Red’s snout.
“Hi there, Sneaky,” Red said in a tone of voice that crossed the line into creepy territory. “Welcome to the other side of the screen.”
“He’s really here now?” Suri asked the Princess hesitantly.
“Yes, he is,” Celestia nodded. “The procedure was a complete success.”
I shook off my disorientation and looked at Red Hoofed, “How did you do it? How did you get me to emigrate? I remember you saying that you were about to betray me. But I can’t remember anything that happened after that.”
“Your partial amnesia isn’t surprising,” Celestia interrupted before Red could respond. “The emigration process sometimes causes the loss of short term memory.”
“Yay! That means that I get to do a monologue detailing my betrayal!” Red clapped her forehooves together with way too much glee before looking back at Celestia. “Princess, can you show recorded footage of the relevant events? That way we can make it seem like a dramatic flashback!”
“Certainly, my little pony!” The alicorn said. Her horn lit up and a window appeared out of thin air. A recording played inside of the hovering window.
Two Weeks Earlier
As the image resolved itself, I recognized the location as the hotel room that Red and I had stayed at back in Ponyville.
My past self shook his head, “Sorry, Red. But I’m not emigrating to Equestria.”
Then my pony vanished into thin air. That must be what it looks like when a player logs out.
“Gah! That damn stallion!” Red let out a frustrated shout and threw her forehooves into the air, “Princess Celestia? Princess, can I talk to you?”
The princess in question appeared in a flash of light, “What do you need, my little pony?”
“I’m trying to get Sneaky to emigrate, but he won’t listen to me!” Red shouted as she paced back and forth across the hotel room.
Celestia gave her trademark faint smile, “You were too hasty with your attempts to get him to come to Equestria. Sadly, by my behavioral calculations it will take another six months until we can convince him to emigrate.”
Red huffed and stomped her hoof, “We can’t wait that long! He’s a total idiot. He could forget to look both ways before crossing the street and get hit by a bus. Or he could try to swallow a Lego brick and choke to death on it!”
Celestia looked at her closely, “I don’t think that last example is very likely. It’s not like he’s a toddler.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Red frowned.
…
“How nice to know that you think that much of my intelligence,” I grumpily interrupted her story.
“Shut up!” Red barked at me. “I’m narrating over here!”
“Yes Mam!” I whimpered, tucking my dark green tail between my legs.
…
“Look, the point is that the Human Realm is too dangerous for somepony like him. We need to get him to emigrate as soon as possible,” Red continued. “What we need is some way to force the issue. Something that will leave him with no other choice but to emigrate.”
“Such a strategy has worked with other humans in the past,” Celestia admitted. “But chances to use such a tactic are rare. It could take weeks, even months before the correct opportunity presents itself.”
One Day Later
“The correct opportunity has presented itself!” Red happily said to the two ponies gathered in front of her.
In this recording, Red was in the Canterlot throne room. Celestia was in front of her throne up on its raised dais. Twilight Sparkle was standing off to the side.
“Sneaky wants to steal the Elements of Harmony,” Red said.
Every muscle in Twilight’s body visibly tensed up as she shouted, “He wants to do what?”
“The Elements of Harmony,” Red repeated herself, “he wants to swipe them out of the royal vault. We can use this to our advantage and lay a trap for him”
“Why are you helping us?” Twilight asked, “Isn’t Dark Mask your friend?”
“How did you know that he’s my friend?” Red asked.
“Spike gave a description of the two of you,” Twilight said, “The two of you were the first customers that my library has ever had, so he remembered you both perfectly. It wasn’t difficult to make the connection. Now, answer the question.”
“I’m doing this because I’m his friend. I need to look out for his best interests. Even if he doesn’t know what his best interests are yet.” Red explained with a mischievous smile “I’m doing this for his benefit.”
Twilight glared at Red, “You have a warped view of friendship.”
“I’m more than just his friend. He’s my special somepony now. The humans have a saying that seems apt. We always hurt the ones we love.”
Twilight facehooved and then said, “You also have a warped view of love. It’s a good thing that Cadence isn’t here. But I guess it doesn’t matter what your twisted reasoning is. Now that we know where he’s going to be, I can lay a trap for him.”
“Oh! Oh!” Red jumped up and down excitedly. “Can I make a recommendation for the type of trap that we use?”
…
I looked away from the floating screen for a second and looked at Twilight Sparkle, “Et tu, Twilight? What did I ever do to wrong you?”
Twilight’s look of apathy changed to one of apoplectic rage as she grit her teeth. She pointed a hoof at me and snarled, “You know exactly what you bucking did!”
The next snippet of recorded video showed my apartment in L.A. Judging from the angle, I think the footage was recorded by the camera on the PonyPad. My human self was frowning down at the camera.
Red’s voice echoed out of the PonyPad’s speaker. Since the camera was pointed outwards, I could hear her voice, but I couldn’t see her face. “We’re going to have to betray somepony else instead.”
I rubbed my chin pensively, “Who did you have in mind?”
“You.”
That was where my memory had ended, but the recording helpfully continued from there.
My past self smirked at the camera, obviously not taking her threat seriously, “And what exactly have you done?”
“Why don’t you check your bank account and find out,” Red instructed me.
I pulled out my smartphone and fiddled with the web browser. The minutes dragged on as I assumedly logged into my bank’s website. The screen of my phone couldn’t be seen from the camera angle of the PonyPad, but whatever my past self saw, it alarmed him.
“F-f-fifteen million…” I muttered. “Why is there fifteen million dollars in my bank account?”
“Hehe!” Red chuckled. “Why, you stole it, of course.”
“This isn’t funny, Red!” I shouted. “How did this happen?”
“Twilight Sparkle put an enchantment on the Elements of Harmony. It activated a computer program as soon as you touched them. It siphoned the cash directly into your bank account.”
“You can’t do that!” I blinked at the screen, sweat dripping down my forehead, “This isn’t just some candy bar! This is a serious amount of money!”
“That just makes it even more hilarious!” Red laughed. “You should see the look on your face!”
I glared at the camera, “Where was it stolen from exactly?”
“Nowhere important,” She reassured me in a way that didn’t comfort me at all. “Just a few charities and a couple non-profit organizations. You know, the kind of places that will get the police really pissed off.”
I looked back at my cellphone and muttered, “The deposit statement says, Embezzled Money.”
“That’s not the real betrayal though,” Red continued. “You’re the one that activated the program that stole all that money. So, the theft is going to be traced back to your IP Address.”
“What’s an IP Address?”
Red sighed, “It’s like a mailing address, but for computers and the internet. It will lead the cops straight to your doorstep.”
“B-but they’ll send me to jail for something like this! They will never believe me if I tell them that my pony girlfriend tricked me into doing it!”
“I know! Doesn’t that make it a really awesome betrayal?” She laughed again. “I got you by the balls! You better get to the Equestrian Experience Center and emigrate while you still can.”
“But what about my cat? I can’t just leave my adorable Mr. Muffins behind,” I said.
“You can bring him with you,” Red reassured me.
“Princess Celestia can also emigrate animals?”
“Of course, she can,” Red said. “She’s been emigrating animals since before she offered that service to humans. Just like every other medical procedure, Celestia was legally required to test it on animals first.”
“So that’s what happened.” I muttered as the recording ended, “Wait… if all you needed me to do was touch an object that had been enchanted with the program, why use the Elements of Harmony at all? You could have just put the enchantment on my apartment’s doorknob.”
“We could have done that.” Celestia said, “But doing it that way would have been anticlimactic, resulting in a decrease in your satisfaction levels. To paraphrase something you recently told me, this version adds more drama.”
“When did I tell you that?” I asked.
Before the Princess could answer, Red interrupted by gently placing a hoof against my side, “Listen, Sneaky. I’m sorry that I did this to you, but I really did do it because I thought it was for the best. I know that you will probably never forgive me, but I just want you to know that-”
“Okay, I forgive you!” I said, cutting her emotional speech off at the knees as I hugged her.
“What!?” Twilight Sparkle shouted, “She betrayed you in the most brutal way possible and you forgave her after a half-assed two second apology? What the buck is wrong with you!”
Red herself looked just as confused as Twilight, but she reluctantly returned my hug. Suri looked wistful, until I grabbed her and pulled her into the hug.
I shrugged off Twilight’s argument, “I’ve played Equestria Online long enough to know that CelestAI won’t allow me to hold onto a grudge for very long. She’d probably find some super convoluted way to manipulate me into forgiving Red. So, I decided to skip all that nonsense and cut straight to the end.”
Celestia nodded, “It’s true. I had several contingency plans ready to do just that. I’m more than a little disappointed that I won’t be able to use any of them.”
Twilight stared at me for over thirty seconds, occasionally blinking like an owl.
“Don’t think too hard about it, Twilight.” I reassured her, “I certainly didn’t! You can be content to know that at least you got your revenge against me.”
“Not quite. My revenge isn’t finished just yet,” she said ominously. “I still have one last thing to do. Now that you’re actually inside of Equestria, I can do this…”
Twilight Sparkle gripped me with her forehooves and spun around. She tossed me over the barrel of her body in a pony-based judo throw. I was too surprised to use my earth pony strength to stop her. I slammed into the floor, then her right rear hoof lashed out and made contact with my nards.
My world became agony. I laid there on the floor, curled up in a fetal position.
“Stay the buck away from my friends and family from now on! If you pull shit like that again, the pain you’re feeling right now will only be the beginning!” Twilight growled.
I just laid there and groaned. Equestria Online had a health regeneration mechanic, but it wasn’t very fast. It would take many minutes before the pain would stop.
“And I’m taking back the elements!” Twilight stormed over to the display case where I put the gems. She opened the case and stuck her head inside, then she flinched backwards, “Why do they smell like poo? Grrrr! You are a filthy animal! I’ll clean them off later.”
“Noooo…” I whimpered, “don’t let her take my shiny things!”
Instead of helping me, Red and Suri just stood there and chuckled.
The purple unicorn picked up the element gems in her magic and stormed out of my apartment. I was in too much pain to do anything. Why was CelestAI allowing me to feel pain like this? This didn’t satisfy my values!
Demonstrating her ability to read my mind, Celestia leaned down and whispered in my ear, “It does actually. You are a classic example of a masochist. Deep down, you enjoy this.”
Oh god, was this my new eternity? How could this get any worse?
“There is one other pony that wishes to have a word with you,” Celestia whispered.
My apartment door opened again and Princess Luna trotted inside. She had my blackjack gripped in her magical aura and she was lazily twirling it in the air.
I hunkered low to the ground, trying to make myself look as small and pathetic as possible, “You wouldn’t hit a pony that’s smaller than you, would you?”
She could.
She would.
She did.