It shouldn’t be possible, surely this must be a joke or something similar, there was no way that something like this could be happening, because to make such jokes was more her style, to be on the receiving end would be ironic, and it was better to think this was a joke because otherwise it would be even worse… because then she won’t be the only one that jumped dimensions.
“You know who I am, but not because you are my subject, so what is your name?” The guard that had been apprehended by Celly kept trying to squirm out of the magical aura of the alicorn, but the difference in power was clear due to not being able to even move.
Meanwhile, Gilda was surprised at seeing a changeling, she knew about them, or at least she had heard about them, they were rather infamous and had been something that she had been told stories about, the classic ones about a changeling taking kids that didn’t behave, something that mothers used to say their kids to keep them under control, but as she grew older she began to learn that not only changelings existed, but that they were really secretive and there were even some changelings that worked as the perfect spies.
Most griffons simply laughed at the idea of insect ponies being capable of infiltrating their home, as if they could do that, well, seeing one in front of her really did make those rumors more believable, she also wondered how many changelings worked for Celly because she had a hunch that this one was not the only one on the field.
As she continued to eye the stoic changeling, Kibitz had taken a long rope from his pack and with expert moves he had the unconscious gryphon completely tied up and his weapons stashed securely on his belt and back, no reason to have something like this being wasted. The older pony had taken a look at both the short sword and dagger from the gryphon guard and was amused at the high quality of the weapons. Griffons were not known for their capabilities as smiths, that honor went to both the deer and the saracens far to the east, so how did the griffons could have created these weapons and gained the technology to do it in such a short time?
“Look, calm down okay? My name is Blue Lights! I am just a simple guard,” it was so obvious how much the young unicorn was trying to lie, but he was so bad at it, his eyes betrayed him and really, celly at this point of time had become a lying detector what with having to deal with diplomats, the court and so many other creatures the last three centuries.
“Nice try, but we both know you are lying to me, so one last chance, what is your name!” pulling the unicorn towards her, Celly glared at him, knowing very well that she was close to the truth, at least of what the heck these two were doing in Equestria.
“Oh shit, you an admin? Of course you would be an admin, why wouldn't you? I mean, considering how powerful Celestia is in the cartoon it is obvious” yep, that just confirmed it, just perfect “that’s my gamer tag too,” she was getting nowhere with this idiot.
“Okay fine, I’ll take your word for it, for now, what is more important right now is, what are you doing in Equestria?”
“Look, I’m just another beta-tester, is my job to check if there is anything wrong and just play along while the admins and developers are doing their own thing,” So there were more, dear Faust there were more like him, not only was him and the unconscious gryphon in here, but also others? This was maddening.
“Yep, that’s what he and the others keep talking about, I swear, all the new guys are making absolutely no sense, is as if they are talking a completely different language, they keep being in awe and saying how realistic everything is, I would have given you that information in my report but, well, you can see how everything is so screwed up out there, I needed to do a couple of other things before I could do that.”
“Wait, so you are working for Celestia? What about Chrysalis?” the changeling simply leaned his head, clearly confused about what the pony was saying, none of what the unicorn had said made any sense, what was he talking about?
“Who’s Chrysalis?"
“You know, your queen?”
“Are you stupid or just ignorant? Changelings don’t have a queen, we have a consul! Princess Celestia, what is he talking about?”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start with this one, but if you need to know, ask Sweetie Drops.”
“Ah, confidential information, got it, no more questions your highness.”
“Now that we have that under wraps, back to you mister,” after finishing her business with her agent, she bopped the unicorn on the nose, making this one wince a bit “you keep saying that you are a beta tester, that this world is just a game, bla bla bla, why would you say that? Have any proof of it?”
“Ah, yeah, I mean, this project is very hush hush, we even had to sign an NDA contract and all, how the heck this company got permission form Hasbro to create the game, but really, who wouldn’t like to be part of the first full dive MMO game?!” Celly just sighed, she couldn’t believe what he was saying, and sadly, the pieces of the puzzle kept falling into the spaces with every word that the unicorn kept saying.
“Oh boy, so how long have you been, ah, ‘playing’ then?”
“For… about two or three days? At least in this instance, the people that hired us told us that it would only be a couple of hours in the outside world while here it would be, what’s the word?”
“Time dilation?” Celly already had a very bad feeling about all of this.
“Yeah, that one, so how long has your session been since then? Sorry about attacking you, we thought you were an NPC,” the unicorn, Blue Lights seemed a little contrite about it, he didn’t seem like a bad guy, but it was clear that he had really bad luck considering his situation.
“Ah, how do I put this, this world that you think is a video game? Yeah, got some bad news for you and your partner, but you are in Equestria, as in, you know, the real Equestria,” The white alicorn was known around as a goofball, a completely badass and dangerous goofball, but she was known for her relaxed attitude and jokester personality, but that mask wasn’t needed right now, this was so absolutely weird that she needed to be Princess Celestia more than Celly.
“Yeah, nice joke, next you will tell me you are the real Celestia,” the blue unicorn began to laugh before he took a look at all those present in the hall and looking at the completely serious faces he then quieted down “what? Are you insane? This is just a simulation! there is no way I am in Equestria, everybody knows that is just a cartoon! Look, I even have a status screen! Isn’t that proof enough?” Once he said that he seemed to activate something with a thin bracelet, or at least tried to, before remembering that he was floating on Celly’s golden aura; she nodded and put him on the floor as this one pressed the bracelet with one hoof and a blue screen floated in the air, it was a status screen like those in video games, but something was wrong about it.
“Hey, look, the dog has his personal tag and collar,” Gilda was clearly annoyed by all this, and why wouldn’t she? For all she knew these were simply mercenaries that were living the high life as the rest of her people suffered under their yoke, if only it was that simple, as Blue and Gilda were glaring at each other, Celly focused her magic, she knew something was going on.
“Excuse me if you feel any… discomfort, shall we say.”
“Wait, what?” Without wasting time she fired up her horn, using one of the many medical spells she had learned on one of her many adventures in the past few centuries, Blue Lights began to squirm while Celly kept on going on her scan until she found… something. There was something embedded on the stallion’s head, close to his ear and it was not natural; gripping Blue once more on her magic she began to extirpate the small sphere out of his body in the least painful way possible “okay, this feels weird, this feels so weird!” It was as if his body was made of clay with the way the sphere was brought out of him.
“Okay, I have never seen something like that before, that looked so gross… can you do it again?” No wonder Gilda was a good friend of Dash.
“That is a very ancient medical spell Miss Gilda, not many have the power and control to do it, but those that do are a blessing in the medical field,” Kibitz had seen many ponies in his long tenure as Princess Celestia’s assistant and he had seen very few that could not only use the spell, but have enough control to use it in the field, those ones were always ponies that ended up making enormous contributions in saving lives.
Soon, the sphere came out and poor Blue Lights could only shudder at how strange it had felt, but once he focused once more on what was going on he saw that the small sphere was… transmitting the status screen?
“Wait… what? What is going on?”
“I’m sorry Blue Lights, if that is even your real name, but this is a Theater Beacon, it was developed some time ago,” The blue unicorn kept looking at it, before with one hoof, he lightly touched the bracelet on his foreleg, seeing how the screen turned off and on, it wasn’t possible, this was not possible.
“If I’m not mistaken, this is a very old model, a D6 if I’m not mistaken, they were all the rage when I was just a runt back at the hive,” the changeling got closer to the sphere, quickly recognizing the model due to his years of study.
“You are not wrong, Sprinkles, this is a very old model.”
“Wait, your name is Sprinkles?” Gilda had to contain her desires to roll around the floor laughing at such a dumb name.
“If you were the opponent, wouldn’t you find it utterly humiliating to be defeated and outsmarted by a being called Cupcake Sprinkles?” The changeling agent said with a proud smile on his face and after a few seconds of thinking about it, Gilda did have to admit he was right.
“Okay, that is devious,” while these two kept going back and forth, the blue unicorn was slowly losing his mind, pressing the button over and over, not quite understanding what was going on.
“A what? What is that thing?” Poor Blue Lights couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on at the moment.
“A Theater Beacon is technology that we use these days, newest models are not only capable of saving images, but also several channels of music and information, it is used now mostly as a way to save messages, it has also revolutionized our movie making industry; but this model is old, it has very few functions, like saving just a few screens that you can interact with… I’m sorry Blue, but they were lying to you."
“This… this is not possible, you are wrong, you are just playing a prank on me,” the young stallion was just a notch away from starting to panic, they were just joking, there was no way the alicorn was right “I can prove to you that this is just a game! I am not in Equestria!” Pressing several other places on the bracelet, the fake status screen changed to just one word, the log out screen, but once he pressed the Yes option Celly felt it, a surge of energy coming from the sphere and quickly casted a shield around it.
It was a good thing that she did because as soon as he accepted the option to log out, the sphere began to overcharge and soon bolts of lightning began to appear all across its surface, thankfully all that energy had been absorbed by the shield spell, but what had happened was clear as the morning light.
“What in Tartarus was that? Why did it malfunction in that way?” Sprinkles was curious, that was one of the main traits of changelings, that’s why it made them really effective as agents, but both Celly and Blue were shocked at what had happened.
“That… that was the logout option? Oh god… Oh god! I’m really in Equestria! Those mother fuckers wanted to kill us all!” It wasn’t a logout option, it was a killswitch, what kind of monsters was Celly going against this time?