//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Trick or Trope? 
// Story: An Ordinary Story 
// by Steady Gaze 
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Who am I? I’m no one—really, you shouldn’t attribute any sort of sentience to me. I don’t need to eat, breathe, cook, clean, or make any of the mundane motions of material maintenance happen. If you’re wondering why that is, it’s because I’m a series of repeating dark shapes upon a lighter background (or vice versa), scanned and interpreted by you, the reader, as either a subvocalized voice or a stream of thoughts. (Hey, but what if someone does a dramatic reading? N-no, that’s assuming this takes off and I become horse famous, and definitely counting my chickens before they’re hatched.) And yet, you can’t deny the verisimilitude, the “realistic” impression inherent in that final interpretation you give me. Disembodied, nonsapient voices aren’t all that relatable in stories; I may as well be a canned message playing from a greeting card with the requisite cheap electronics. So let’s say I do have wants, chief of which is to tell a good story.

If you’re still with me, I’ll talk about the… parameters of this “simulation”. With or without sapience, I’m not as creative or original as I’d like to be. But hey, nothing is more chaotic than a multi-agent system, with free-acting agents, not automatons. Why not build a mental model of a preexisting setting and characters therein, add the “spice” of conflict, and see what happens? I can eat my fudge cupcakes in peace while the story writes itself! I know I'm not the first writer to ask myself, "What would Pinkie Pie do in this situation?"

Ok, well, the story "writing itself" is a slight exaggeration. The simulation can be the yeast, but I’ll be the baker. From the infinite dark void, imagine a fast food menu materializing. “Yeah, for this one, I’ll have a number 6 campy spy thriller, extra sap(piness) please. Mmmm… I have been trying to keep off the pounds lately, but I could eat a horse today, heh. I’ll take an apocalypse. What kind? Oh, surprise me.”





“We only work as a team,” Agent Sweetie Drops had said so many moons ago, and her handlers at SMILE had stayed true to their word. When she’d moved to Ponyville and met Lyra Heartstrings, she realized she needed that kind of friend to be by her side no matter what, although of course everypony around her besides Lyra (and only in private) still called her Bon Bon, the name of her cover identity. “The name’s Bon. Bon Bon,” does have a certain ring to it. But, in this line of work, being together meant sharing the dangers as well as the boons.

Since the sabotage in the Cloudsdale weather factory (covered by an “accident” cover story, so as not to incite panic in the ever-harmonious land of Equestria), the agency had been on high alert. Agent Heartstrings and Agent Drops had tailed a stallion suspected of planting an explosive device to an illegal gambling den in Las Pegasus. Besides the unsettling observation that he had a forked tongue (which, by their intel’s best guess, he had gotten as part of an induction ceremony to a gang or cult) and his apparent insistence on wearing a full-body tailored suit at every hour of every day, it had been as uneventful as any other operation. Now, they were at an impromptu arena, ringed by perhaps a hundred ponies all gathered around a mongoose fighting a cobra. It seemed everypony had their forehooves extended in frenzied yelling. A few ponies held out bits to make new bets even as the fight was in progress.

The target pulled out a notepad and quill, checked something off, put it away, and then got on their hooves. “Target is on the move, and he’s trotting right toward me,” said Lyra urgently.

“Stop touching your ear!” Sweetie Drops whisper-yelled into her earpiece. She was seated in a vantage point high-up in the stands, with Lyra just ten meters from the target.

“What?” It was too hard to hear over the commotion. Lyra turned away and pressed her earpiece harder into her ear.

“Put your hoof down!” Sweetie Drops continued desperately.

Lyra’s eyes went wide with the realization that her cover was crumbling faster than an overdone cookie being trod underhoof as she turned towards the target, who was staring at her just a few meters away. After a moment of recognition, the mysterious stallion bolted. The chase was on!





It was a day like any other on the streets of Manehattan, when something streaked down from the sky and planted itself on the intersection of 5th and Riverhoof. After the initial shock, curious ponies gathered around the impact crater, which housed a glowing metal spheroid. One pony reached out a hoof, when suddenly, with an ominous hissing, a web of green fibers issued forth in all directions. With a scream, everypony stampeded away, except for one unfortunate stallion that was ensnared and dragged, screaming, towards the object.

To the horror of everypony else, more of the mysterious objects began raining down all over the city. Many fled, only for another of the cursed meteorites to crash in front of them and suck them in.





In a secret military facility housed in the caves deep below Canterlot, everypony of rank was huddled in front of one particular intricately enchanted cutout engraved in a crystalline wall in the command center, which was covered in a wall of such cutouts that displayed footage from across the base and the ongoing attack in Manehattan. One particular pony, with a strange cutie mark of a slightly rotated isosceles triangle with a small stalk protruding from the shortest edge, had been given the centermost spot and was paying close attention. Outside, various lower-enlisted rushed about preparing for deployment or frantically carting papers, supplies, and arcane devices.

With an ethereal flicker, the arcane monitor powered up and displayed a peculiar variant of the royal lunar seal, depicting the moon and stars and the Roaman motto “Vigilo Confido”. After a moment, the seal faded away to reveal a shadowed, backlit figure with a deep blue coat and flowing mane.

A mare's voice, speaking with gravitas, began, “Hello, Commander. In light of the recent extraterrestrial incursion, this royal council has convened to approve the activation of the XCOM project. You have been chosen to lead this initiative, to oversee our first, and last line of defense. Your efforts will have considerable influence on this planet's future. We urge you to keep that in mind as you proceed. Good luck, Commander.”

With that, the monitor winked out.





Every sense of mine is abruptly filled with buzzing, crackling static. TV static and white noise entertains my eyes and ears, and if I had a body, I’m sure it would have felt like it was rolled up in a blanket of paresthetic needles. I let myself exist in such a state for a few moments. Gradually, I begin to hear dull voices as my senses reassert themselves.

“We can’t… wake…” I hear, through a generous helping of reverb and delay. Some more indistinct mutterings occurred around me.

“... now,” says a different voice.

With a whoosh, my vision flies elsewhere.