Manehatten was bustling with life. Ponies everywhere stampeded down opposite directions on the sidewalks. No one ever seemed to care who they ran into or what they ran into. As long as they made it from point A to point B, they could care less if they trampled over others. The stop lights continued their mindless transitions: red, green, yellow, repeat... The regular fight broke out over a taxi carriage every now and then. Some mare tossed a box full of her excoltfriend's stuff out the window. Pidgins bombarded all the crumbs that were hidden between crevices around the local food joints. The buildings stretched so high up that the sun was only visible during mid day. One particular building stood out.
It was a twelve story beige building with a grand old neon sign that read "JoyBoy Inc". The windows were black, tinted as it were, to reduce exposure to harsh light. If the building could have spoke, it's mouth cracking stucco would open up just to moan, "Why am I still here?" Inside, the many levels were filled with cubicles. In each cubicle sat a pony. Most of them were teenage colts and stallions, but a few mares were not uncommon.
Button Mash sat at his desk in the cube farm. He had just submitted the latest texture pack for his collaboration project. He had been working with Glitch Lagger who wasn't the most popular character in the crowd, but he got his job done, usually. Button was editing the final details on a graphic design for a video game box when Glitch came rolling in on his chair to the entrance of Button's cubicle. "Hey there BM." Button was too engrossed in what he was doing to notice Glitch. "Hey! Canterlot to Major Mash!"
Button turned his head just then, "Hmm?"
Glitch chuckled to himself. "What? Were you dreamin' again?"
"Sorry I was just...ya know..."
Glitch interrupted him before he could finish. "Yeah that's great. So, did you finish that texture pack?"
"Yes."
"Good." Glitch flashed his backstabbing smile. "It's 'bout time you came through on schedule."
About time? If it weren't for Button, Glitch would have been unemployed long ago. Glitch was always late in his work and relied on Button to help him out. Button never complained though, even when Glitch took all the credit. Button didn't mind too much. He was probably the only one that could tolerate Glitch and his obnoxious ways. As long as he didn't start talking about...
"So Button... Meet any cute mares lately?"
Of course he would start this up again. "No."
"Come on! You got STEP OUT there and get a life. Why don't you use FaceScroll anymore?"
Button rolled his eyes. "I gave it up because I have more important things to do."
"Like ?" Glitch waited in an awkward silence until Button answered.
"Doing my job." There was silence after that...
"Wow. For pity's sake, just, just..."
"What?"
"I don't know! Find a marefriend or something!"
"He's got a mare friend!" A heavenly voice came raining down on both Button a Glitch's ears. "He's got me." An alabaster alicorn with radiant lavender hair and emerald eyes stepped out of a pillar of light and ran towards Button.
"My dear! It's you." Button exclaimed as the alicorn jumped into his lap. "I have missed you so..."
"I'm sorry Mother Faust kept me so long from you, but now we are free to make everlasting love, together." She began lick Button's neck.
Glitch stood there with his jaw on the floor and his eyes like saucers. "DAMN."
"Something the matter, Lagger?" Button asked with a whimsical smile.
"Who...who..." Glitch was locked on his stutter as his eyes were glued to the angelic beauty that had just stopped nipping on Button's ear to answer him.
"The name is Belle, Sweetie Belle." She turned in Button's lap playfully laughing and kissing every inch of him her lips passed. "Are you listening dear?"
"Yes." Button replied as Sweetie inched closer to his mouth.
"Hey Button, are you listening?!" Wait, that wasn't her voice.
"Yo, Mash." As Button snapped out of his blank stare he saw Glitch clopping his hooves in front of his face. "You alright?" The heavenly mare was gone...
"Sorry I just kind of..." Button didn't have an excuse. He was day dreaming again.
"Whatever. Listen, I gotta go. See ya later 'Major' Mash." Glitch wheeled himself out of the cubicle. Button could practically hear Glitch laughing to himself in the distance. "What a whack job."
Button sighed the sickly air that remained after Glitch left. He looked towards his computer. FaceScroll? He hadn't used FaceScroll since he was a teenager. Ponies nowadays still used it. It was definitely more successful than HoofSpace. Button grew curious as to whether or not his old FaceScroll account was even still up.
"Why not..."
He pulled up the site and typed in the probably outdated information.
Username: ButtonTheMash@trotmail.com
Password:
daringdoofan97
To Button's surprise, his account popped up. A much younger Button Mash with braces smiled from the photo marked "profile picture". He had three confirmed friends: his mom, Featherweight and Pipsqueak. Button remembered them. They were close friends when he lived in Ponyville. That was before his father died and his family moved to Manehatten.
He changed the profile picture and upgraded his information. Not sure what to do next, he clicked on Pipsqueak's Profile. Maybe he could catch up and find some mutual friends on the side.
Button smiled when he saw the wedding photo of Pipsqueak and Dinky. Things certainly had changed...
He moved on and clicked on the mutual friends tab. As Button scrolled down the list he could recognize a few old friends. Some weren't all that different, and others just didn't match up to their faces. One picture in particular caught his eye.
"Sweetie Belle?" For a second he thought he was hallucinating. She had changed over the years. Her face was beaming with a smile; the kind that was incomplete. She seemed to be happy. Button clicked on her profile. Her background photo was of some sort of reunion. Yes, it was a reunion of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Sweetie stood with her friends. They all had their cutie marks. Surrounding them were junior CMCs wearing red capes. Button had always wanted to join the CMS, but he was too shy. He mainly wanted to join then because he thought Apple Bloom was cute. But she already had a coltfriend or drakefriend as it were, Spike.
'Sweetie Belle,' Button thought, 'it couldn't hurt to say hi, right?' His hoof hovered over the mouse to click the friend request button. 'What if she doesn't remember me?' Reluctantly he pulled his hoof away. 'What if she does remember,' he moved in, 'then again,' he stood up, not sure what to do. 'Just DO IT ALREADY.'
Click...
Button waited...a window opened.
YOU CANNOT PERFORM THIS TASK WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR OF YOUR FACESCROLL ACCOUNT
Administrator? Who was the administrator. Button clicked on the administrator link. "You have got to be kidding me." It was his mother.
He quickly picked up the grey telephone off to the side of his desk and dialed the number he had memorized for some time since his mother moved to Las Pegasus.
"Hello?" A sweet but feeble voice answered.
"High. Mom?"
"Button? How wonderful, I haven't heard from you in ages. How is Manehatten? How have you been? Met any cute mares?" His mother seemed to emphasize on that last question.
Why does everyone ask that? "Oh, Manehatten is great, I'm fine, but no I'm still single."
"That's a shame." Could she be anymore disappointed?
"Yeah okay, mom? I need your help with something." Oh, the irony. After all the years of telling his mother he didn't need her help, he needed it now as a grown stallion.
"What can I do for you?" Her sweet tone was deceiving as Button knew his mother was also aware of the irony as well.
"Mom, do you remember my FaceScroll account?"
"Yes."
Yes! She's still lucid. "I was wondering if you could make me the administrator of my account." Please, please, please...
"Why? I thought you said FaceScroll was too manestream." That senile witch!!!
"Yeah, I sort of need it for work." She didn't need to know what he really needed it for. It was his life after all.
"Fine. Anything else?" What more did she need?
"No, but I'll call you if anything comes up..." Okay all do-
"Oh button I almost forgot to tell you..." Uhhhh... "In going to be in Manehatten pretty soon." Mother of-
"That's great mom. See ya soon." She 'was still' his mother.
"Bye bye now. I'm going out with the girls tonight. Love ya." Yep, still mom.
"Love you too mom." Whew. Glad that's over. Uh oh. That presence was in the air, that feeling of dread, cold, and slightly gassy. His boss, Hard Wire, was standing right behind him.
"Mister Mash?" His deep dark voice wasn't as pissed off as usual. "Are you done 'socializing' with your mother?"
"Yes." Please don't shoot me.
"Wonderful woman. She makes the best apple cakes." That was a little creepy. "Anyway, I'm giving you a job."
What?! "What is it sir?"
"I need your help editing a photograph a singer." Oh... This again. That's not too bad. "It shouldn't be too much trouble."
"Alright sir..." What's eating him? The boss is usually more...cruel. "Is something wrong?"
"Yeah. Don't tell anyone this, but, the company is in a hole. We're almost bankrupt. If our next set video games don't sell well, we're gonna have to sell the company to PonyStation." His tone was grave. This was serious. "This singer is important to what we hope will be our best video game yet. She allowed us to use her image as the princess in the game. I am trusting you to make this game cover look good. You got three minutes to get down to the sound studio nib the basement." With that the boss walked off back to his office.
Wait. Three minutes!?
Button lunged out of his chair and raced through the cubicles. He headed for the stairs. The elevator wasn't fast enough. He only had two minutes left! Button bashed through the stairway door and galloped as fast as he could down the stairs; trying not to trip.
The stairs widened and grew into a flat black shining surface. Button pulled a glowing rod off of his side and broke it in half. Almost instantly, the broken rod materialized into a circuit board pattern which grew into a large lighted motorbike. A retro decal appeared on the side: LIGHTBIKE. An orange wall of light trailed behind the back wheel .
"You can't win this Mash." Glitch was coming in fast behind Button. Glitch's bike zoomed up alongside him trailing a wall of red light.
"Haven't you learned yet? I always win!" Button yelled triumphantly. He zoomed just ahead of Glitch and turned. His wall of orange light brought Glitch to nasty halt.
"Ahhh!" Glitch's bike shattered into thousands of cubes. "Son of a bit!" He landed on his back. "No fair!" Glitch grabbed a black and red discus from his side and threw it at Button.
He saw it coming. On instinct, button stood up on his bike and pulled out his own discus. Glitch's disc rebounded off of Button's. A wave of terror overtook Glitch as his disc came flying back towards him. "Holy sh-" As the disc made contact he burst into a light which dissipated in the air. Button turned around and sat back down on his bike.
"What did I tell you!! Ha! No one messes with the Ma-"
SMACK
Button hit the basement door and came rolling through the sound studio. "Gak!" He came to a painful stop when he felt his body ram into another. They both slid a good distance across the studio floor.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" Button ended up underneath the one he had hit. "I came down the stairs a bit too fast and I couldn't stop myself. I-I-" He stared neck of the white figure who lifted herself off of him. "What?"
"It's all right. I'm fine. Actually this whole incident was kind of exciting!" The white unicorn mare flicked her lavender mane out of her face revealing a pair of glistening green eyes. "Why don't we start over. Hi, my name is Sweetie Belle."
"Uhh..." Button was speechless.
"Is something wrong?" Sweetie looked quizzically at Button.
"You're still on top of me..." He grunted under the weight of Sweetie Belle.
“Oh My! I am so sorry.” Sweetie scrambled to her hooves and moved off of Button. She helped him get up. “I didn’t really catch your name…”
“Oh, I’m Button Mash.” He mustered up the best smile he could.
“Button? Hmm, that’s a cute name.” Sweetie beamed, but Button dropped his smile at that word ‘cute’. He wasn’t usually fond of being called cute. It was something his mother would say, and he did NOT want to think of Sweetie as his mother. “I can understand Button, but ‘Mash’?”
“Oh, when I was born my mom use to listen to the song about an wonderbolt, Major Mash. It was her favorite song so…” Button did his best to explain, but he still felt like an idiot when he talked. But, something seemed a bit different around Sweetie. She wasn’t so quick to be judgemental like other mares he had met. She was sweet, like her name.
“Oh I love that song…” Sweetie’s eyes seemed to light up like stars. “I sang it for a talent show once.”
“Really?” The thought just occurred to him. “Oh. You. You’re the singer...right?”
“Yes.” She was so calm, and peaceful. It made Button feel strange. It was like she was too perfect to be real. “So what do you down here?”
Button just remembered his job he was sent to do. “I work in the photography and graphics department. I was sent from upstairs to take pictures of, well, you.” The embarrassment seemed to fade even faster.
“Oh.” Her tone went flat.
“Something wrong?” Button grew increasingly worried. Was it something he said? Did his breath stink?
“They told me about you.” Uh oh.
“Who told you about me?” Button knew who it probably was, but he wasn’t thinking at the moment.
“They,” Sweetie pointed to the two sound mixers in the recording studio, “told me you were the daydreamer. They also said something about you zoning out, or something like that…”
Button sighed. “Oh great. You think I’m a freak now too huh?” He started to walk off to grab the camera. He just wanted to get this over with now.
“No, I just...You don’t seem like the kind of pony that would do that do that.” Her words hooked onto Button and put his walking to a stop.
“It’s actually a problem for me sometimes.” He just continued on his way to grab the camera.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of though.” Sweetie seemed determined to subtly apologize. Button looked at her. She was smiling. It was a different smile than what he had seen on her FaceScroll profile. The missing part of her smile seemed to be filled. She looked genuinely happy. “So are we gonna take those pictures?”
Button smiled. “Yeah.”