Ready Player One

by Flutters Is Shy


1- Why can't I have nice things?

"Ahhh," Twilight sighed, sipping at a piping hot cup of chai tea. It was either that or coffee, and she wanted to be relaxed, not highstrung. This was nice. Being able to have an entire day to herself, to relax and just enjoy reading a book. Nothing could compare. Not having to deal with vengeful spirits, stircrazy ponies, or even the overbearing tendencies of her dragon. Why couldn't she do this every day? Because she had a schedule to keep. She managed to free up her day by piling her tasks into the week previous. It had been hard, but she had managed it. And by Celestia it was worth it.

Until the visitor came in through the front door.

And immediately picked up a vase filled with flowers and smashed it down on the floor.

"Excuse me? What do you think you're doing?" Twilight managed to belt out, lurching to her hooves. Just what did this stallion think he was doing, coming into her home and breaking her stuff? She had brought that one with her from Canterlot! It was made by her mother...it wasn't that pretty, but it had been made for HER.

The strange stallion simply ignored her, walking to another vase which he reared up and brought his hooves down on it. Twilight let out a squawk of indignation, before grabbing the offending stallion and hoisting him above the ground.

He simply stared at her for a couple seconds, before reaching out a hoof and grabbing a book off the table within his reach. He looked at it for a minute, ignoring Twilights attempts to figure out what he had been trying to accomplish. He then did something that surprised Twilight. He tucked the book behind him, where it disappeared.

"Do you know where the Boss monster is? Or at the very least, where I can find a quest? This game is actually rather boring, seeing as there's nothing to do."

"You come into my home, interrupted my day off, and destroyed a vase my MOTHER MADE FOR ME, AND THIS IS JUST A GAME FOR YOU?!!? Whats wrong with you?"

The stallion had a confused look on his face, as if he was trying to figure out what Twilight was on about.

"Bah. If I wanted to get whined at, I'd play a babysitting sim. I'm out." With that, he swiped a hoof in the air in front of him, and disappeared.

Twilight stood still for a few seconds, her magic dissipating as she lost her focus on it. After a few more seconds, a dam inside her mind broke, and she roared out onto the heavens above.

"FUDGE COLORED STALLION STOLE MY CELESTIA DARNED BOOK!"

~--------------------------------------------------------------~

Parzival exited the sim, resurfacing within the program node he had found the previous night. It was a hidden within a packet of data that only he, with his new user access could get to. He had the month previous found the Easter Egg of OASIS. This in turn gave him the super user access routines of the maker of OASIS, James Halliday. James Halliday had hidden several strings of code in his personal data, and this was only the first string he had managed to decode. It led to a game within the game, an interface that locked him into a preset world. As of yet, he could only find slight references to the source material.

My Little Pony. A series that had started in the 80's, produced by a toy company by the title of Hasbro. That however, was where the trail had gone cold, seeing as Hasbro had gone under and been bought out by a competing company called Kenner. The toy line had then been phased out, in favor for Kenners more popular Barbie line. This in itself was odd, in addition to the fact that none of the characters he had met so far had matched any of the documented ones. So apparently Halliday had taken it upon himself to revive a dead series, and construct a completely new world around it?

And to compound on that, the personality vectors the NPC's had were some of the best he had ever seen. They dynamically reacted to his actions, and he was hard pressed to tell them apart from a real person. What if Halliday had a dedicated group he entrusted to upkeep that server?
Why? What treasures, what information had he hidden in this seemingly simple world?

He'd find them. Whatever he had hidden, he would find. That was his purpose. To uncover what had been lost.

With a smirk, he entered the login code for Equestria.EXE

Harmony.

~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

"I'm telling you, he just walked in, broke my vases, and then when I grabbed him with my magic, he vanished!" Twilight Sparkle told her friends for the third time. "And to top it off, he stole one of my books!" she huffed, gaining a look of amusement

"Are you sure you saw what you thought you saw?" Rarity gestured for her distraught friend to sit down beside her.

"I KNOW what I saw. He was right there!" Twilight waved a hoof wildly at the space where the fudge colored earth pony had disappeared.

As fate would have it, the same fudge colored earth pony they had just been talking about chose that moment to reappear, give them each a nod, and then walk out the front door. They each had a moment of silence, which was broken by a screech from Twilight.

"GET BACK HERE BOOK THIEF!" She zipped out the door, leaving her friends to contemplate the mystery of a teleporting earth pony.

Twilight followed the errant stallion through the streets of Ponyville. His movements were erratic, and it didn't seem like he had a clear goal as to where he was going.

"GOTCHA!" She screamed, teleporting in front of the frightened stallion, watching with dismay as he dodged to the side and jumped over a house. "I...what? How?" How did an earth pony jump over a house? How did an earth pony teleport? WHAT WAS GOING ON?!?!?!?

"AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!" She screamed to the heavens, upsetting several Pegasi.