//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: In One Screen and Out Another 
// Story: Of Love and Video Games 
// by Art de Triomphe 
//------------------------------//

	Another day at work, another day that dragged on far too long. For what must have been the fifth time that week alone, I was putting in overtime. So yet again, I sat there, the only one in the office, tacking away on a keyboard as line after line of greentext code raced past me. You see, I was a video game programmer, one of those unappreciated nerds who didn't get any name recognition, didn't get any fame, and yet worked at least twice as hard, and at least three times as long, as anyone who did.

But finally, the time had come to call it a night. I just had to save my work and then I could return once more to my empty one-bedroom apartment. However, before I could do either of those things, I noticed something odd in the code, a symbol which I had never seen before and I had certainly not entered in. If I could describe it, it would be sort of like an upward-facing arrow, except with the head being hollow, and the shaft, while going all the way through the trianglular head, was very short otherwise.

"The hell kind of an error is that," I asked completely aloud. 

In an effort to answer my question, I brought the cursor icon to behind the offending symbol and hit the 'Backspace' key. It was indeed erased, for a second anyway, before reappearing. I tried this basic editing strategy a second time, then a third with the same results. Deciding just to say "screw it" and look into it in the morning, I proceeded to write one final line of code.

>[pro]SAVE[pro]

Then, as I had done countless times in the past, I hit the 'Enter' key and patiently waited for the computer to tell me its computations were complete. However, another unusual event occured instead. The screen flashed for a second in reverse coloring, that is to say it flashed back and forth between greentext-on-blackscreen and blacktext-on-greenscreen. Then it went green completely. At first, I thought that I had somehow lost all the data I had inputed over that day of work. That was, until the light emitting from the screen intensified significantly, causing me to squint in momentary blindness and tear off my glasses. In the next moment, while I couldn't seen anything, I heard a sucking sound like a vacuum cleaning running right next to my head, followed by a sensation like I was being pulled out of my chair toward the monitor.

"AAH!"

"OOF!"

I had somehow been launched into something very solid, and, judging from the reaction it made when I hit it, very alive. When I opened my eyes again, I was met with a faceful of white carpet. I slowly tried to rise back to my feet, with moderate success. My left arm couldn't hold up its half of a push-up, and my head was pounding viciously, which made sense, since I had hit the ground with that part of my body first.

"Mom! Mom!" the other living thing in the room started yelling. Putting my glasses back on and looking up, I saw a brunette boy, judging from his voice, I guessed he was a teenager. The weird thing about him was that he had a layer of dark brown fur over his entire body, or at least what of his body I could see around his jeans, white sneakers, and red-and-white striped t-shirt. He was rubbing his own head in pain. I also noticed that his ears seemed to be sitting on top of his head, though they were splayed back.

"Button? Button Mash, are you alright?" I could hear the feminine voice of who I assumed was this creature's mother coming up the stairs.

"No, mom. I-ouch that hurt." By this time I had given up on standing and settled for sitting on the floor, rubbing my head with my right hand since it turned out I couldn't raise my left arm.

The door to the room, which I hadn't noticed until now, opened and another creature stepped in.

"Button, what's-AH! Who are you!?" The female screamed in shock once she spotted me there. She too was a brunette, though of a lighter shade than her son, with her hair tied by a red band into a ponytail which laid over her right shoulder. Her fur was a beige color, and with her black flats, white capri pants, and baby blue t-shirt with just enough of a V-neck to show off a bit of cleavage, she just screamed 'soccer mom'. She also had something which I hadn't noticed on her son: a tail, the same color as her hair.

"I don't know," the kid, who's name seemed to be Button Mash, answered, standing and walking over to the doorway which caused me to notice his docked tail, "he just came into the room through my TV in the middle of my game." He pointed toward his electronic set-up: a medium-size TV, sitting on the floor, with various wires coming out which connected to an old-school video game controller, like something out of the Atari era, a square with a joystick and a couple of buttons.

"How-how is that even possible," the female asked again to no one in particular.

"I don't know either," I answered, not even questioning the fact that we all spoke the same language, "though I'm pretty sure I need to go to a hospital."

"Ah! You can talk!?"

"Yes, I can talk. And can I reiterate, hospital?"

"He seems in rough shape, mom," Button spoke up, still wincing in pain, "I think we should help him."

"I don't know sweetie," Button's mom said, "how would we even get him to the hospital without everypony noticing?"

"Everypony?" I said in a voice just above a whisper.

"It's not that far," Button argued, "and we can't just leave him there on the floor."

This point seemed to sway the mother, who sighed.

"Let me get my purse," she said, starting out the door, "Button, help him downstairs."

Button Mash nodded and came over to me, extending his hand.

"C'mon, mister," he said, absolutely beaming.

"Thanks, kid. And you can call me Jack."

After pulling me up off the floor, and finding my left arm still to be useless, Button and I quickly made our way downstairs. Button's mom was standing by the front door, waiting for us.

"Do you have a plan, Button," his mom asked.

"If we walk fast enough, anypony we pass will probably just mistake him for a white stallion."

"That's your whole plan," I asked, "just walk fast enough?"

"Unless you got a better plan."

I had to admit that I didn't, and so, without further argument, we set off. As we strolled toward the relatively tall hospital, we walked three abreast, Button on the outside, his mom, the shortest of us, in the middle, and I, the tallest, walking closest to the houses. Fortunately, we didn't spot anyone else on the way there.

The three of us walked in through the sliding double-door of the hospital, I now having switched to clutching my left shoulder. Button's mom took the lead, walking up to the reception desk first.

"Excuse me," she said, catching the attention of the pink-haired nurse, "we need to see a doctor."

"Oh, Nusery," the nurse responded, "what happened to Button?"

"Button's fine, but I think his friend has a separated shoulder."

"Please follow me." The nurse got up from her station and led us down a short hallway to an area which held an array of beds. Button Mash and I each sat down on one.

"How long will the doctor be," Button's mom asked.

"He shouldn't be long," she started to turn, but then stopped and looked at me, "what happened to your tail, sir?"

"Tail," I asked, "I don't have a tail."

"Yes, I'm asking what happened that you lost it."

"I've never had a tail."

"Oh," Button's mom gasped, "he must have hit his head harder than I thought."

"I'll have the doctor look into that as well." With that, the nurse again went off to wherever she needed to go.

"What was that all about," I asked, "I was telling the truth, I've never had a tail."

"That may be," Button's mom responded, "but I think for your sake it's better if we hold up this ruse for a bit longer."

I didn't quite understand her logic, but again I found myself without an argument to make. Fortunately, I didn't have to think about it long, because I soon saw a brown-furred, white-haired being in a long white coat come in our direction. I presumed he was the doctor given the stethoscope around his neck. However, there was something that made him different from the three people I had met so far in this world, a horn was sticking out from his forehead.

"Nursery," he addressed Button's mom, "Nurse Redheart said you brought in a pony with a separated shoulder."

"Yes, he's right here," she pointed toward me.

"Well sir, I'm Dr. Stethoscope," I secretly wished he was joking, "let me see that arm, if you don't mind." A light-blue aura soon enveloped my arm, and I noticed a similar aura coming from the doctor's horn. I had to grit my teeth to the pain I was experiencing as the bones in my shoulder jostled each other. "One...two..."

I started to panic. "No, wait!"

"Three."

*POP*

My eyes crossed in my skull as the doctor forced my shoulder back in its socket. I let out a grunt of pain at the same time. Immediately I clutched my shoulder, rending it from the blueish aura.

"Damn that hurt," I moaned, not caring who heard me curse.

"Now just don't do anything to strenuous with that arm, and it should be fine," the doctor said, "Now that that's taken care of, there's the matter of your tail."

"I already told your nurse that I don't have one."

"Well you certainly had one, correct? I've never heard of a pony being born without a tail."

"Do I look like a pony to you?" This was, admittedly, a stupid question. Obviously what he meant by the word 'pony' was not what I thought he meant. And if the creatures in this world referred to themselves as ponies it was even worse. I mean, except for the fur and the tail, there wasn't much that separated, say, Button Mash from myself. Still, my question left the good doctor flabbergasted.

"Can...can I get you to wait here?"

The doctor walked off at an accelerated pace, mumbling to himself as he went. I, meanwhile, shifted my gaze between the doctor, Button Mash, and his mother.

"What did I say?"