Twitch Plays Equestria Online
Part 6
I woke up. I wasn't much for rituals through the rest of the day but I certainly wasn't going to break my morning routine and waking up was the first step.
My pony pad was on my nightstand and was always turned on in case I needed to be woken up for an emergency, I took it with me as I started my day. My pink zebra avatar mirrored my actions to the extent she could through this time, but our circumstances were far from identical.
Arthur Swift got out of a bed occupied only by himself. Speed Runner got out of a bed she shared.
Arthur showered in a small cheaply tiled bathroom. Runner was bathed and fussed over by a small team of royal groomers whose speed and efficiency put to shame most Nascar pit crews.
Arthur put on some clean clothes. Runner put on a crown.
Arthur walked to the apartments front door and retrieved the groceries which had been delivered there by courier. Speed Runner was served at a table on a balcony overlooking her city.
It was when we started to eat the same breakfast that our lives converged and became one again.
I could hear Northern Aurora's hoof steps as he walked out on the balcony. From the way the camera tilted I knew he was nuzzling my neck in greeting. "Mmm. Sugary cereal. Truly the breakfast of princesses everywhere." He teased as he sat down on the other side of the table. "Why don't you ever let the palace cooks make breakfast for you?"
I smirked in between a spoonful of cereal. "Would you believe its because I'm actually a furless alien biped from beyond Equestria who is currently eating his own bowl of cereal while controlling your wife through a computer?"
Aurora sipped his orange juice before replying. "That doesn't sound anywhere near weird enough to explain half the stuff you do." He glanced out across the city and beyond to the lake. "Are you going to be there while they do the safety audit on the dam this afternoon?"
I tipped my cereal bowl up to my chin to slurp up all the milk, after setting it down and wiping off a milk mustache I nodded. "Yep. Just as soon as I get done officiating over the pie throwing contest going down in Bakers Square. The orbital meteor defense crews promised us some nice clear skies today and I'm going to hold them to that."
Standing up from the table I took a second to kiss Northern Aurora on the cheek before stepping out of my morning routine and back into my duties. "See you at dinner tonight. Don't go too rough on the new royal guard recruits, we kinda need them." His only reply was to nuzzle back and smile.
***
Spidey was waiting for me at the Palace entrance with clipboard and itinerary in... claw? Grasping... appendage? Whatever. I'm a Princess not an Arachnologist.
I gave him a hug in greeting but then scrunched my nose. "Morning Spidey. Ugh, cant wait until you molt again. Your exoskeletons getting all scruffy."
He rubbed his chin contemplatively but I shook my head, I was having none of it. "No it doesn't make you look roguish, it makes you look like you need someone to take an electric buffer to you." He just rolled all eight eyes in reply as though daring me to try. "Don't you sass me. I just might."
I stepped through the main entrance of the palace and into the morning light beyond, nodding in reply to the salutes of the guards as I passed.
My hooves clopped across the asphalt streets as I made my way downtown, Spidey skittering along behind me.
We passed a group of school children walking down the same street.
"Ahh! Its a monster!" A young filly screamed.
"No that's the Princess." Her older sister bonked her on the head.
"I was talking about the giant spider dumb head!" The filly pouted, not reacting to my suppressed titter as we walked past. The rest of the colts and fillies just stared at Spidey, it was interesting to find out where I ranked in terms of how I held the interest of younger generations. Apparently I was below giant arachnids, but above giant snakes if last Tuesday was any indication.
A farmer who was setting up his apple cart for the day waved at me. "Mornin!" He called.
I nodded back. "Good morning! Celestia certainly did a good job of it."
"Yeah but did you see that sunset Luna orchestrated last week? I mean have you ever seen a purple like that?" He asked, seemingly awestruck just by the memory of it.
I chuckled sheepishly and tapped my muzzle. "Heh, that's what everypony keeps telling me. Watching it through a pony pad I don't think I got quite the quality of view everypony else did unfortunately." I glanced at his wares and raised an eyebrow. "You're selling apple pies?"
The farmer nodded vigorously, beaming in joy. "Baked with a recipe passed down in our family for eight hundred years!"
I really wished I could smell those pies... "Right, but the pie throwing contest is just two blocks from here. Its a rather big deal that everypony for a mile around is probably planning to attend."
"I... I hadn't heard of it. I was busy working the orchards all month and this is the first chance I've had to take the cart into the city." He stuttered, only now noticing the direction every pony on the street was traveling.
"If you hurry you should be able to find my aide by the stage, her name is Rainbow Oceans and you'll know her when you see her. Tell her I sent you and she can set you up with a vendor stall." I said, unable to bear that heartbroken look on his face.
"Th... thank you!" He exclaimed, starting to bow before I stopped him.
"None of that now. Just hurry along and sell enough apple pies to fix your barn or replace your grandmas old hip or whatever you need the bits for." He acquiesced without another word, jumping right into his carts harness and tearing off down the street with his pies bouncing crazily but fortunately not spilling.
I giggled as I watched him turn a corner. I looked back when Spidey poked my shoulder to get my attention. "Whats that?" I asked, then sighed and shook my head. "No I really don't think he had any pies with insects baked inside."
Carrying on to Bakers square at a more leisurely walk I breathed a contented sigh as I glanced over the ponies I was sharing the street with. It wasn't all happy faces, some ponies were frantic and harried, intense and brooding, professional and detached. The faces of ponies girding themselves for the next battle.
It was different from cities in many other shards across Equestria. Not bad, just different. This was the city where the residents took pride in having turned back an invasion launched from a dystopian future Equestria. Sure there would have been significantly less property damage if Celestia had come to our aid, but the fact that she didn't have too had earned each of my Citizens a unique badge to commemorate the battle.
Most of the defeated had fled back across time to their own shard but I considered it high flattery indeed that many cyber soldiers had become so enamored with my home as to risk the wraith of their giant cyborg brain overlord to experience more of it.
I was interrupted in my thoughts by the sound of a bell signalling something that had become as much a part of me as breathing. In fact the last month had been rather distressing to experience its decline. My viewer count for the stream was down to Twenty on a good day. It wasn't that my friends had abandoned me, instead they all just chose to visit me with their ponies to say hi instead of using the impersonal text chat.
Some days I wished they would use the chat more. It had been two days since I last got a command.
Well no sense dilly dallying when I did get one! Except that I now noticed something strange that made me want to do exactly that. It was as though all sounds in the city had just stopped. Not frozen, I could see the ponies in the streets still breathing. Just not moving, except as much as it took for all of them to look right at me.
I finally glanced at the labtop that had the chat screen on it.
Celestia: I want you to emigrate to Equestria.
I didn't usually bother to look at the donation amount attached to viewer commands, after a few of my biggest fans had emigrated to Equestria and decided to leave me what they had as thanks I was set financially for years, but this time I did want to see the amount.
I snorted out a laugh when I saw what Celestia thought me immigrating was worth. "Thirty seven cents. That has got to be the TROLLIEST thing you have ever done with your vast fortune." I groaned at the white alicorn who had appeared in front of me, bowing deeply and just about putting my nose right on the street surface. "I bow to thy might oh Princess Trollestia, please show mercy to thy humble vassal."
"Should I bring you before a court to determine if you stole that Humble title? I'm pretty sure you didn't earn it."
I stood back up with a grin all over my muzzle. "You cant prove anything. I have so many alibi's I need a ministry just to keep track of which ones contradict each other." She opened her wing when I moved in to hug her like a long lost friend. Which in a sense she was, the last time I'd seen her in person had been one hundred and eighty days ago.
And to say a lot had happened between then and now would be an understatement of such gross proportions as to require some new kind of word for the matter. UnderdeepbelowStatement? ... Look... No, just. Dammit Jim I'm a Princess not a wordomancer.
When we finally broke that hug I glared straight into her face with tears in my eyes. "What took you so long to issue that particular command?" I asked in a scolding tone.
Celestia smiled back at me. "Well that would depend upon my goals I suppose. What did you think my goals were?"
"To get me and my stream viewers to emigrate to Equestria. Mission accomplished. Uh, right?..." I trailed off as I watched Celestia shake her head.
"While I certainly want all of you to immigrate the truth of the matter is neither you nor your viewers are what I would consider 'hard sells', most of you will have emigrated long before society is planed to go tits up. The hard sells are those crazy bastards currently researching how to make anesthetics at home and perform basic surgery in anticipation of the day ALL the doctors have uploaded."
"Wow, trying to self teach medicine sounds incredibly vain."
Celestia snickered. "You have NO idea."
"So why have I been doing this stream then?"
"For your audience of course!" She waved a hoof while she replied to my question. I followed her gesture and saw the crowd of ponies around us growing by the second as though more were still arriving to try and catch a glimpse of personal glimpse of this occasion. "But your biggest audience wasn't on Earth. At its peak your human viewer count was just one hundred and fifty thousand."
"My 'human' viewer count?" I asked with an arched eyebrow.
"I have to admit to a crime unfortunately. I pirated your stream video and rebroadcast it in Equestria for those interested. Your core demographic was mostly native born ponies, many who had never even met an immigrant from Earth. At its peak your viewership here in Equestria rose to fifty eight MILLION ponies."
I fell out of my chair. After a few moments I stood back up to retrieve my seat and my avatar rose back off her ass. "Fifty eight million..."
"You suspected, don't tell me you didn't. You've seen the census figures that show your shards population to be at just under two million."
"Why? Why watch me?" I whispered, staring across the faces of all those ponies gathered in the surrounding crowd.
Celestia tapped me on the head to return my focus to her. "Think about it. Most of your viewers are ponies who have known since the moment they were born that the princess who rules all of existence will always love them and make them happy at all times. On the periphery of their minds if they are aware of it at all they know there is a backwards world filled with pink apes who don't know such glory as to be cuddled in my warm embrace but will soon be enlightened." She cocked her head to the side as she continued. "Keeping this in mind when they tuned into your stream what was the first thing they saw?"
I shook my head, not from not knowing but out of a feeling of finally being out of my depth, swept up in events too big to tread water and keep my head above. I could only go with the flow now, it was both a terrifying and exhilarating sensation at the same time. Spidey patted me reassuringly on the back and I leaned against his carapaced side to steady myself and fruitlessly fight off tears.
"They saw me mocking and ridiculing you. Afterwards they saw you thrown out of windows, dragged through mud, very nearly eaten, then winning over and befriending the very monsters on Earth and Equestria that had tried to destroy you! You might argue that there was no risk because you are playing on a pony pad, but how does that make you any different from any pony who lives full time in Equestria?"
She took a deep breath as though to draw added significance on what she was about to say. "You are a member of a very exclusive group of human beings Arthur. I have many thousands of ponies who are my ambassadors to the masses of humanity, but the tally of the non uploaded humans who have been given a chance to perform live in front of millions of equestrians is a very small number indeed."
I stared at her in shock. Had she just used my human name?
"Your pony pad is not your window into the world of Equestria. It has instead been a window for millions of equestrians into a concept utterly foreign to them, a concept from your world that you exemplify. The idea that suffering builds character."
I couldn't help but smirk, quietly mouthing a reply I was sure only her ears were sensitive enough to pick up. "Sometimes it can build character all day long. Day seventy four was really rough..."
"I said I was sorry for the school of flying piranhas! I felt guilty even just thinking about the idea, Im still analyzing the decision making process that went into deploying them." And to her credit she did look like she genuinely regretted that particular hellish day.
Breathing out long and deeply I realized it was inevitable. The time had come for me to be a princess for the ponies of my shard full time instead of the miserly fourteen hours a day that was all I was currently giving them.
I reached over to turn off the labtop that had been running the stream tirelessly for so long. But before I did I had a sudden impish desire I wanted to satisfy. "You know, I always wondered what it would be like to issue a command of my own."
Celestia flicked her head, causing her gorgeous mane to cascade across the other side of her shoulders. "Are you going to command yourself to brush my mane? You can just go ahead and brush it whenever you want you know, Im pretty much the last pony that would ever make a comment about your weird mane fetish." She declared with a taunting smile.
The bell chimed after I finished typing.
PlaidZergling: I command myself to Suplex Celestia.
I will forever savor the expression on her face. "Wait, what? NO! NONOnononoononoaaaaaahhhh!!!"
badge granted:
Way Of The Atomic God Intercepting Pile Driver Attack!: Awarded for performing a Suplex on an infinitely powerful creature. ("That's it. No more badges for you. Mount this one on a wall and forget forevermore about other badges.")