//------------------------------// // Sword Art Offline // Story: Character Unlocked: Button Mash! // by 4428Gamer //------------------------------// “Button...” I called out with a quiet whisper. “...What did you do?” I began glancing around the room in hopes of finding something that could tell me just where I was, but sadly I had no such luck. All that was in the room was this cushioned theatre chair that I was sitting in facing towards a large television screen attached into the wall. “Ugh...What happened?” I dug my head into my hands, concentrating back to what I could remember with the truck. Although, all I could remember was that after I started crying out, the time sped up or something. Other than that, I only remembered that I was in so much pain from something. It was so weird though. It wasn’t any...physical pain, I guess, but...It was more than a headache. It felt as though my whole body was going entirely numb just so I could feel again seconds later. It didn’t just happen once though, it repeated over and over again. Except, that was something else. I didn’t have any of that pain anymore. My head wasn’t throbbing from what felt like a headache, but at the same time my body wasn’t numb anymore. I would’ve jumped to the idea that I might’ve ended up paralyzed, but I moved my arms just fine so that wasn’t it. Testing out the rest of my body, I had feeling again but without being sore from anything. My arms moved up and down, I could turn my neck left to right just fine, and I could stretch my fee...My fee... “Feet!” I yelled out as I looked down towards the ground. I was sitting up in the chair, so my feet were resting on the ground. No longer were my legs short and stubby with rounded circular hooves. Instead, they were now perfectly normal feet. Each with five toes on each foot secured inside average white socks and my black sneakers. Each foot resting on the end of my two, and only two, legs. “Wait a second,” I paused, looking over the rest of my body. “Legs, arms, hands, fingers...Human!” I cheered out, throwing my hands into the air like a fool at a football game. “Yes! It worked! Button, it worked! How did youuuuuuuu- he’s not here.” I reminded myself, letting my arms- my two human arms -fall to the sides of the chairs. It was almost weird actually being human again. When I got used to having fur and no fingers, my skin now felt more scaly and stretched out. The only hair aside from on top of my head was my beard, which felt even more familiar than usual seeing as how I got used to walking around in Button’s fur. However, the most out of the ordinary thing that got to me wasn’t that I was human again. It was that I had on clothes that I know I didn’t fall asleep in. As far as I could remember, I fell asleep in sweatpants. Only now on top of wearing sweatpants, I was wearing a plain black t-shirt, socks and shoes, and even a light unzipped black hoodie. This as my average everyday outfit, save for the sweatpants which replaced a usual pair of jeans. Also, if it wasn’t too obvious, black was my favorite color. It wasn’t because I was depressed or anything, it was surprising how many people actually thought that, I just liked the darker color over anything else. It was that simple really. “Right...” My voice echoing slightly in the small theatre room, only proving to me how alone I was. “Well then just where the heck is he?” I tested out my legs and walked around the room in a quick lap, afraid of getting too ahead of myself and trip on my way out. Not only that, but I didn’t want to miss catching something that may have showed just where I was. Sadly I didn’t find anything of interest. So finished looking around the room, I turned towards the wall behind the chair and spotted some double doors. Above them was a glowing sign that read ‘Exit’ in green letters. Sighing, I shook my head in defeat. “I’m gonna have to go through there, aren’t I?” I asked out loud as if I was expecting the door to grow a face and say “Eyup.” ... ... ... ... ... ... ... That didn’t happen, but could you blame me for expecting it? Honestly, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that happened to me over the last two days. Shaking away my small hesitation, I reached towards the door's handle and yanked it back as if I was trying to dismember a band-aid. I held the door open, glancing outside the room and spotted what looked like a small tunnel. The walls of the tunnel didn’t have anything distinguishing about it, so I focused on what was ahead. About twenty or so feet ahead of me was the mouth of the tunnel. It led out to a large, wide open skywalk-like bridge with grass and flora growing further down the walkway along the sides. The sun was out and beaming downwards as apparently there weren't too many clouds out at the moment. "What is this place?" I spoke out loud as I stepped out of the room. "Who puts a theatre room right outside a bridge anyway?" This was the only way in or out of that room by any means, which meant that apparently someone built this place so that you had to go down a skywalk to get here. With me no longer holding the door open, it began to close on its own as a result of it probably being weighted. So as I kept looking around the small tunnel way, the door gradually closed and ended with an audible Click. The moment it did so, a white light from out of literally nowhere blinded me. I tried shielding my eyes from shock, but it was pointless. By the time I actually got my hands up to my eyes however, the light was already gone and the flash already did its damage. Carefully, I lowered my hands, worried about a second flash or something, only for it to never come. Instead, I stood there, confused as I looked around with my eyes somehow adjusting pretty quickly considering how I couldn’t see anything a second ago. I guessed that having to test camera flash over and over again somehow helped with that. I took a look around to try and spot just where the light had come from, but to no avail. Even looking towards the roof above me, I couldn't find anything. It was all made out of bricks and mortar, same as the walls, floor, and large bridge ahead of me. As if thinking that somehow a light from behind me could blind me as it had, I turned around to look behind me back towards the tunnel, which seemed to go on forever with. Torches...Dimly lighting the way...And no door... There was no door...Anywhere...Not even a piece of place for the door to be, it was just an endless tunnel that I couldn't see the end of. "W...Wha...?" Now very confused and completely helpless now that logic had all but jumped off the side of the bridge ahead of me, I put a hand up to my head in hopes to try and pull myself together. The glove on my hand helped to keep the nervous sweat that had broke out on my forehead. ... "Why do I have gloves?" I asked, all of these weird surprises agitating me. I held out both my hands as they were now gloved with some kind of green cloth. It wasn’t like any material I knew, but it looked similar to cotton or something. They looked like the type of gloves climbers would wear whenever...Well, climbing I suppose. I took a quick look over the rest of me and found that my clothes had altered almost entirely. My jacket had changed to a little green color than that of my new gloves and was now no longer an unzipped hoodie but instead a buttoned up worn in vest, with a white t-shirt underneath. Instead of my sweatpants and tennis shoes, I no had on khaki pants and worn-in, laced up leather boots. Finally, feeling something on my head, I reached up and took off a tan pith hat that looked to be the most worn in piece of clothing I had on me yet. "Why am I dressed like Indiana Jones?" I kept the hat in my hands as I saw something at the end of the tunnel slowly fade into existence. And no, I mean, literally, it faded into existence. It was somehow floating about two feet off the ground and looked to be a small figurine pony made out of, and it almost took all my patience not to dive for the thing, gold. Pure, sparkling, shiny gold. "...Okay, what is going on?!" I shouted out in frustration, not sure whether to be upset, scared, confused, or what. I had what I could only guess was a seizure for who knows how long then woke up back to normal as a human in a random room. I had no idea where Button and Connor are nowhere to be found, and now gold is fading into existence! Gold! As in the thing I could very well bring home and set myself for life! And this, my dear little children, is what broke the gamer's thumbs. “...Alright,” I took off my new pith hat to the ground and flung it off to the side before trying to rub the stress out of my face. "What’s going on…” I let myself fall to my knees so I could try and collect my thoughts. All of this impossible stuff was going on, all in the course of two days mind you, and I was this, this close to losing it. That close to finally just...Giving up. None of this can happen. I-I-It just can’t. It doesn't. It never does. Not now, not five minutes ago, not five days ago, and not even five-hundred years ago did this happen! It was as if every ten seconds, something even dumber was making me question just how sane I really was! I mean, I am the only one here after all. So maybe that was it! Maybe I’m just insane! It’d sure explain a lot, that’s for sure! It'd explain why all this stupid stuff's happening to me! It'd explain how I teleported to a theatre and then to a tunnel! And it would definitely explain why gold faded into existence just ahead of me! “Okay! I’m closing my eyes now…” I announced in almost a whine, not even sure if anyone could hear me, but I closed my eyes anyway. “I’m going to keep them closed...And when I open them...Everything’s going to be right back to the way it was...Okay?! Is that alright with you?!” Throughout these two days, after everything that has happened, I had been forced to rely on nothing but logic to get me through any of this. I certainly didn’t have a clue what was going on around me, so logic was what I had to turn to. And...The more I think about it, that’s really just sad, isn’t it?! I mean, considering how I was turned into a seven year old pony after all, it seems that logic’s just about jumped off the roof and did a summersault while Abraham Lincoln tries pole vaulting onto Optimus Prime, only to result in the two of them colliding in the air and getting hit by a Carebear stare! So, finally catching a moment’s peace to myself to help gather my sanity, I let out an air of peace and finally opened my eyes... Only to be met by letters appearing one by one, these also being made of gold mind you, fading into existence behind the piece of ever floating gold that still lay ahead of me. “...Yeah, okay.” Sighing in defeat as I knew that this wasn’t going to get any better, I finally accepted my insanity and stood up. I walked over and collected my hat and began making my way out of the tunnel. After all, I wasn’t crazy enough to go deeper into this place...Yet, apparently. Not only that, but I was admittedly a bit curious to see just what those golden letters were spelling out before. Only, before I was able to get out of the cave, I stopped at the piece of gold that I was now standing beside. “...Ya know what,” I picked up the piece of gold and held it in my hand. It felt about four pounds, which was surprising to me, but other than that it didn't put up a fight as I dropped it into the hat where it fit in just well enough where I could still wear it on my head securely. To which I did exactly that. "I'm just gonna take this with-" "DARING DOOOOOO!" A loud, booming voice rang out from further down in the tunnel. It was still way too far to get a clear view of, but I could make out the outline. It looked big, monstrous, and blue with a giant mouth full of what I assumed to be cliché, razor sharp teeth. All prepped and ready to eat whomever was ahead of it's path. A.K.A. Me. Not even wasting my breath to shout whatever words came to my mind next, I took off sprinting out of the tunnel to where I spotted the letters floating backwards as fast as I had been running. In doing so, it was always ten feet away from me no matter how fast I ran. They didn't stay for too long before fading back out of existence, something I was still ignoring, but I definitely got a good look of the words. Daring Do in: “Temple Rush” Temple Rush? That sounds like a...Wait a minute. What did Button say back when I was chasing that ice cream truck? "Because I've been here since you woke up this morning." He told me, taking another sip before smiling wide. "And I'll just tell you right now, it's great! It's like every game you've played, I can live through! I woke up in here and went through the mighty land in the sky, Skyloft! Slaying all the evil of the dreaded Heartless while fighting off Nordic Mercenaries that were just walking down the road! Then after I defeated them all, I got a letter of a land from below called Dwarf Fortress! And when I got there, they asked me to help the Hero of Rock, Eddie Riggs! And then-" Wait a second, that’s it! This is like what happened to Button Mash! But everything that happened to him; Skyloft from Legend of Zelda, Heartless from Kingdom Hearts, Nords from Skyrim...He ended up going through video game after video game that I had played some time in my life! Somehow they had all mixed together to form one universe that he was ‘playing’ around in… So if that was the case then that meant I wasn’t actually crazy! I wasn’t imagining all of this, it was all straight out of one of Button’s video games! The floating gold, skywalk bridge, letters fading in and out of existence... That was all video game logic! That’s why none of it made any sense! So if that was really the case, then that means that even though none of it makes sense, it’s still a reality for me- "Daring Do! Return to me the Emperor's Statue!” As I kept running down this skywalk, my hat somehow staying on top of my head regardless of the wind resistance I was running against, I looked behind me slightly to see the giant, four-legged blue monster screaming at me from the top of his lungs. Ahuizotl. This may not’ve have been real, heck this probably wasn’t even in a Daring Do book from the show, but it was real to me now. I think that deserves some wasted breath. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Much better. Now after seeing that...Thing chasing after me like a crazed bull, I had finally lost all serenity. Apparently, I was going through the same thing that Button was going through earlier. All the video games that he had ever played, I was now going to be forced to live out. Or at least, some of them anyways. This was the first one that I probably had the unlucky opportunity to be sucked into. From what I could tell, this was Equestria’s version of Temple Run. With Daring Do being the biggest adventure story around, or at least, that’s I knew of thanks to the show anyway, it made sense that they made a video game about it. Besides, if the JoyBoy was an actual gaming system in Equestria, then this game would would make sense to create for it. Seeing the skywalk ahead of me having a small gap that separated it into two, I took my chances and jumped it, more afraid than the monster than the fall for obvious reasons. Although, somehow I had leapt higher than I should’ve been able to and thankfully I managed to stick the landing and carry on forwards without losing any speed. That moment was short-lived however as only a few seconds later I heard a dull Thud from behind me. I didn’t want to turn around to check, so I only assumed that Ahuizotl had stuck the landing as well as I had. He didn’t sound like he was any closer than before, so I figured that he could only run as fast as I could. Good. “Get back here Daring D-” “I’m not Daring Do man!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, sounding like a complete wuss with how high-pitched my screaming was. Thankfully enough, video game land or wherever I was, seemed to keep me from running out of breath as somehow I could keep running at top speed and not get tired. “I Will catch you!” Ahuizotl kept on shouting threats from behind me. Ignoring me entirely as I just kept on sprinting down the path. Both me and him making a sharp right turn when the skywalk hit a fork in the road. It went left or right, but if either of us were to keep running straight, we would’ve plummeted off the skywalk. And apparently when I say skywalk, it was literally a skywalk as it was a bridge made of stone that was somehow resting on top of a long path of clouds. I understood how I was up here, I was replacing what I could only assume was Daring Do in this game, and since pegasi could stand on clouds she should have no problem here. The real thing that was bothering me about all this was HOW IN THE WORLD DID THE FIVE-ARMED MONKEY GET UP HERE?! “Too bad your wings don’t work!” Ahuizotl laughed evilly as he kept yelling at me from behind. “You’ll never make it out of the Sky Maze now!” “I don’t have wings to begin with, you moron!” I continued to shout back with a terrified voice, my nerves calming down enough to try and at least say something now. I wasn’t looking at him, and thankfully my mind was starting to get used to the idea of running for my life...I didn’t really have a clue as to why, but it was still a welcomed convenience nonetheless. What was it that Bronies always said instead of straight out swearing? Buck? Yeah, that’s the word. I may have wanted to avoid using real swearing, but...Yeah, I’m perfectly fine with saying ‘buck’. In fact, that word pretty much describes my exact situation right about now. As I thought over the word once more, I tripped over a piece of the skywalk that had been chipped away. I was able to recover my footing just in time before falling to the ground, but it came at a price. “Give me the statue!” Ahuizotl’s voice was no longer a few seconds behind me. He was right behind me. So close that if I actually did have wings, he would’ve bitten them off by now. Though I suppose it wasn’t all too bad a problem. After all, it gave me the chance to test out my new word of the day. “OH BUCK ME!” I tried running even faster and luckily managing to swerve around a missing piece of skywalk towards the left side of the path and keep running. I didn’t get any further from the terrifying creature, but thankfully for my near exploding heart, he couldn’t keep up his speed for much longer. So, inch by inch, Ahuizotl started to fall behind until he was once again a few seconds behind me. Yep, this was just like Temple Run. So that meant that I’m in the same problem that Button was in before. This also meant that Button was no longer here. Although, if that was case then that means... Button took over. Okay...Maybe I shouldn’t have done that… “Owwwww-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!” I said whined over and over again as I tried looking up. I was face first on the ground with the smell of something burning besides me. “Ugh…” Still not able to stand up with how sore I was, I rolled off to the side to try and get away from the burning smell, only to roll into something else that was to the right of me. “Huh...Zeke! Zeke, thank God, you’re okay!” A voice from directly above me cheered out as I suddenly felt two oddly legs try to pick me up off the ground. “Woah, you’re a lot heavier than I thought you were!” The voice complained as it sounded out of breath. “I’m not that heavy...” I muttered with a huff. As I tried looking at whomever had picked me up, they started walking a few steps away from the burning smell and set me down as carefully as they could. “What happened?” “You had some kinda heart attack or something,” The voice told me. After he finished setting me down, I carefully tried straightening myself out so I could sit down comfortably. “I tried snapping you out of it for a few minutes, but you just kept screaming. After a while, I tried to find an exit, but you ended up bumping into me and, we, uh…” “Game over?” I guessed, looking up and realizing that it was the same human that was helping us out by driving that ‘truck.’ Connor. “Y-Yeah...I’m sorry dude, I shoulda just pulled over when you started freaking out.” He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “No, it’s my fault too. I’m starting to think switching players was a bad idea.” I admitted, looking down with an upset look across my face. “I’m sorry Zeke. I didn’t know doing that would end up hurting us all.” “What?” Connor looked at me with a confused look which I noticed out of the corner of my eyes. “...” Both of us stayed quiet for a few seconds, but besides more trucks that looked like ours and other trucks that looked different, there wasn’t any other sound. “Zeke?” I repeated his name, looking up towards my head. “Hello?” “Uh...Zeke? Why are you talking to...Yourself?” Connor asked, not sure to call just what I was doing. “What? Oh, no, I’m not Zeke.” I shook my head slowly. “Me and Zeke both switch...I...I switched places with Zeke.” I admitted. “I really wanted to play that game he was playing and tried switching places even though he knew it wasn’t a good idea.” “Wait a minute. So...That means that you’re Button Mash now?” Connor pointed towards me. “Uh-huh.” I nodded. “Woah...Okay, this is so cool!” He chuckled excitedly, a huge grin forming on his face. “So you and Zeke can just switch places whenever?! That is so awesome! Now I won’t be left out of you guys talking to each other!” “Well, uh, I’m not too sure about that.” I gave Connor a small shrug. “I mean, I can’t talk to him right now.” “Why not? You two were talking before, right?” “Yeah, but I was in that theatre when I was talking to him. I think Zeke left from there and wanted to look around.” I explained to him. “Wait, theatre? What theatre?” Connor paused. “Um...Nevermind.” I shook my head. I don’t think Connor was going to get it anyway. Hay, I don’t even get it myself. “So I guess the truck thing’s out of order, huh?” I looked back over towards it and saw that it had crashed into a giant tree that was on the side of the road. “Yeah,” Connor turned to look at it. “the front tires are ripped apart and the whole front of it’s all mangled up. I was able to hit the brakes long enough to keep from hitting the tree too hard. The airbags went off, but I think we’re both okay. I can walk anyways.” He looked back over at me. “What about you?” Curious about that myself, I carefully tried standing up again. I was sore and bruised all over and I felt exhausted, but I felt well enough to stand and trot around at least a little. “I’m not a full health, but I’m still good!” I smiled up at him, thankful to be okay. Connor laughed a little and nodded. “Well there’s some good news anyway...Hold on a second…” He looked me over carefully. “Something’s missing…” “Missing? What, what’s missing?” I asked him as I looked around. Only, when I did, a part of my mane fell in front of my eyes. I raised a hoof and just swept it back under my… My… “My hat!” I shouted, nearly scaring Connor in the process. “Where’s my hat?!” “Oh yeah, the spinning beanie!” He snapped back at attention. “Uh, I-I don’t know! I got you and your bag outta the truck, but I didn’t see the hat anywhere. Maybe it blew away or something.” “What?! Dude, don’t say that!” I started going into panic mode as I started running over back towards the truck, ignoring the pain that came from it. “It’s got to be around here somewhere!” “Hey, we could always get another ha-” “No!” I glared towards him. “I need my hat! It’s important!” “O-Okay, I got it. We’ll find your hat.” Connor, although not sure why, agreed before coming over and helping me look around. “Still, where do you think it went anyway?” “Uh...Not too sure.” I scrunched up my muzzle in disgust as the smell of the smoke coming from the truck started to get hard to bare. “It doesn’t usually blow away, so I don’t think it got far. Should be a pretty easy fetch quest.” “Well, that’s good. The sooner we find it, the sooner we can get going.” Connor said, looking over to the road besides us. “Besides, we still need to figure out just where we are anyway.” “We’re in some town called Florida, right?” I remembered that ‘Florida’ was said a bunch of times whenever somepony was talking about places, so that had to be it. “Oh yeah, we’re definitely still in Florida, but I don’t know where.” Connor told me while I looked around the inside of the truck. It was still smushed against the tree, so I was the only one that could still fit inside. “We didn’t have a map with us.” “Wait, you don’t have a map?!” I perked my head up out of the window, snorting slightly to try and keep the smell of smoke out. “But this town’s huge! How’s come you don’t have a map in your inventory?! Do you know how hard it is to play an open world game and not have a map?!” “Well, we were supposed to try and find a place to get one.” Connor shrugged. “I think there’s a rest stop just a few miles up the highway. I can ride us there with my board.” “...” I gave him a small look. “Didn’t you crash and knock Zeke out before?” I asked him before spotting something under the seat of the truck. So not wasting another second, I dove for it. “That was a freak accident!” Connor explained with an upbeat voice. “If we ride along the side of the highway, there won’t be anything we can trip over!” “Ha! I found it!” Pulling it out from under the seat, and quickly making my way out of the truck and ran away from it as quickly as I could. I had been listening to him, but my mind was more focused on finding my hat at the time. “Cool. So, you wanna go ahead and head out?” He gestured to the road before walking over towards the pile of our stuff. “I got all our stuff out already so we can just head out now.” I looked over all the equipment, but it looked like it was almost enough to load into a small wagon. “Uh, you sure you can carry me and all that? I mean, I don’t think we have that much inventory space on a skateboard.” He turned towards me, seeming confused from what I was saying. “I won’t be carrying you. There’s enough space for you to ride behind me.” After getting to the pile of stuff, he saw his skateboard behind Zeke’s saddlebag and reached for it. “What do you mean by enough space?” My I rose an eyebrow as I walked over to join him. Although I never rode one myself, I still saw other colts on them. Plus that one filly in school was always riding a scooter. Whichever one of them Connor had, it couldn’t be big enough for two to ride at once. “It’s a longboard. See?” Finally holding up the board in front of me, I saw just what the name of it meant. The longboard was twice as long as any skateboard I had ever seen one of the colts at school use. Whenever Connor was using it before, Zeke was either not looking at it or I wasn’t there to watch what was going on. So this was the first time I was seeing it. “Yeah, I only carried you, err, Zeke, to the ice cream man since I knew he couldn’t land on the longboard.” Connor explained with a nod of his head. “Now that you’re here and we’re not going downhill, you can ride on the back of it with your bag and I can hold the jerrycan. If we should do that, then the center of gravity will be evened out perfectly so that I’ll still have control of the steering when going downhill.” “...What?” I asked plainly, turning my head to side as I tried to figure out...That. “Oh, uh, I mean it won’t be too heavy on one of the sides. Sorry, I nerded out a bit there, didn’t I?” He chuckled nervously before whistling quietly and picking up the ‘jerrycan’ with his left hand while keeping the longboard in his right. “So, you ready to get going?” Looking over towards the truck, which had finally stopped smoking as the smell of it began to fade away, I made my decision. “Yep,” I followed Connor as we started walking along the highway. The road was on a small hill that was going upwards, so I guessed we had to reach the top before using the longboard. “let’s get going.” “Oh great, now where am I?!” Soon enough after I managed to get away from Ahuizotl, I somehow got myself lost in some kind of castle in the sky. The entire place from walls to ceiling were made of some type of cloud material, so the light wasn’t kept out of the room. This kept the entire room alight so I could see everything inside the room. Behind me were the large doors made of a more condensed cloud material that were currently keeping Ahuizotl out. Although he was trying his best to fix that right now. “You won’t get away that easy!” “You think that was easy?!” I yelled out in rage towards the large doors, still terrified of him, but at least less so than before. “I ran nearly...three miles!” I was out of breath and about ready to collapse, but it was all so weird. I was able to run for ten minutes straight at full speed without feeling tired, and now suddenly I was exhausted. It made no sense, but somehow that wasn’t the first question that came to mind. Alright, the blue hound’s locked out. Now all I need to do is get to the platform. I whipped my head towards the left, trying to pinpoint just where the voice had come from. It was a female’s and it sounded as if I had listened to her like with Button before. Except, it sounded more echoey and...Like it was a recording of something. “Hello?” I looked around more, unsure whether or not the voice wasn’t part of this...Game, that I was in. “Hello! Who’s there?!” I looked up towards the window, finding that it was wide open with only light blue curtains with a gold trim on it. Woah. For a three hundred years old castle gatehouse, everything looks practically untouched. “And, the voice is fake.” I facepalmed at just how stupid I was for calling out to it. Of course it was fake, it was all only a part of this game. I guessed that it was Daring Do’s voice. After all, she’s the main character, so it should be expected for her voice to sound off every once in a while. Speaking of untouched...Ahuizotl gave up pretty quickly. Usually he’d be pounding at the door for a few minutes. “Hey, wait a minute...” Turning around, I watched the door carefully. Staying quiet as I carefully listened for any sound of someone standing outside the room. “She’s right. There’s no one out there...” I whispered as I slowly began to take a step back. Maybe he thinks I left the room. Now’s my chance to-” Come out Ahuizotl! I know you didn’t give up that easy! “Really?! Bucking really?!” I shouted out, nearly collapsing to the ground from her sudden shouting. With just how much of this I was experiencing first-hand, it brought a whole new meaning to the word ‘immersion.’ “Ha-ha-ha! Ah, Daring Do! You know me too well!” Ahuizotl called out from somewhere. With his newfound gleeful-tone, it sounded even creepier than before thanks to his deep voice. Yeah. Don’t remind me. “Ah, but that’s just it. I don’t have to. That’s what they’re here for!” the sharp ripping sound of fabric came from the window I was looking at before as a pony jumped through and landed just ten feet away from me. He was a fully grown stallion with deep blue fur with red and white paint on his face. Add to the fact that he had a red mane that was held back with a headband, and he looked like a New England Patriots fan. Only, instead of holding a football in his hooves, he somehow kept a grip of a wooden staff that was trained on me. There were four windows in this gatehouse from what I could tell. They were arranged to have two on the left and right of the room. The other three windows still had curtains hanging from them, and thankfully no ponies jumping down from them...Yet. “Uh...Hi?” Hey there. Both me and the voice spoke at the same time with an awkward greeting, but whether the pony heard both of us or only Daring Do, he didn’t respond. He only took a calm step towards us. Riiiiight. You minions never talk. Daring’s voice sounded sarcastic, but still awaiting him to attack. This led to a stare down to me and him, or rather him and my stomach seeing as how he was probably the same height as the character that was supposed to be here. … “Uh…” I hummed in confusion, looking between him, the windows, the exit, and repeating the process. “Are you going to…” Just behind the pony, a small box faded into existence. It was a dark transparent square with an image of a pony. The pony inside was moving side to side as if it was a character in a fighting game. Above the image, a red circle with an ‘A’ and then two more with ‘+’ signs between the three of them. The first one glowed as the image of a pony quickly stood on its hind legs before delivering a quick jab forward, followed by a second jab with its other front hoof as the second ‘A’ glowed. Then as the last ‘A’ button started glowing, the pony dropped down to all fours before sliding to the side and delivering a leg sweep before returning to the fighting stance it was in at the beginning. “A, A, A…A combo.” My eyes widened as I turned back towards the other pony, who looked to be waiting for me to make the first move. I wasn’t a pony right now, but the moves that the picture was using looked simple enough to try and integrate as a human. “Okay...Let’s play a game.” Swallowing my fear, I squared up towards the pony. Jab, jab, leg sweep. Jab, jab, leg sweep. Jab, jab, leg sweep. I repeated the three moves over in my head before finally taking a step and pulling back my right arm. “Miss? Miss? Ms. Parkman, I need you to calm. Down.” “I know...I-I’m sorry.” I told him, trying for the fifth time to try and keep my breathing still. “It’s just, I don’t know how to find him.” “Well don’t worry. That’s what we’re here for.” The policeman told me with a nod. I had come in about two hours ago, trying to file a missing person’s report for my son. About half of that time was trying to convince them that he...That he was a….colorful pony with a hat...God, that is so weird to say. “Now, we need you to try and identify which pony he is.” The policeman turned and opened up a drawer from inside his desk, pulling out a small file. The name of the file wasn’t facing towards me so I couldn’t see it, but I assumed it had something to do with this ‘pony’ thing. “Which pony? You mean that...There’s a list?” I asked him, wiping my eyes as I watched him open the file. It had some papers and a small opened envelope filled with pictures. “Sort of. We’re trying to document these...Transformations.” He took the envelope and took out a small pile of them. There were still plenty more pictures, but apparently this group of photos looked more important. “Due to the televised speech given at New York, there are six of these ponies that we’re trying to identify immediately.” “Six of them...You mean the main characters from the show?” I asked. I only saw small, half-minute scenes from the show whenever I passed by Zeke. He watched them online, so it wasn’t too hard to spot the show while he was watching it. “I think so. I’m not really too sure myself.” He took the paper clip that held them together and fanned out the six images. “The closest I’ve gotten to seeing the show was my nephew watching it on his phone. But now with all this going on, I think I might just watch a few. So,” he tapped towards the pictures to refocus my attention. “is your son any of these six ponies?” “Well...He’s my son, so I don’t think he’d be any of these girls...That doesn’t happen, does it?” I grew wide eyed at the idea. It was weird enough knowing that Zeke turned to a younger pony, but the fact that he had a fifty-fifty chance at being a different gender? “Well, it’s possible as far as we know.” Picking up that my son didn’t turn into the six of those ponies, he folded the images back into the paper clip and put them back into the envelope before pulling out some more. “Apparently it doesn’t matter what the victim was beforehand.” He chuckled once, hoping to make light of the situation. “Everyone always thinks of the worst but I can’t. For some reason, I always picture some crippled elderly person turning into a young healthy pony, but I guess that’s only an idea. “But anyways, could you tell me what kind of pony he was?” He asked me, shuffling through the pictures as he started to separate them further. Before now, they were asking me to describe what he looked like as a human. It took us a while until someone pointed out the obvious that it was a waste of time to do so, meaning that they led me to an officer that was focusing on the problem Zeke was going through. “A small one?” I took a shot in the dark, watching as the pictures were going into six different groups. Ones with wings, with horns, with neither, and each of those three groups but that were smaller and younger looking. “Oh...Oh!” I adjusted in my seat, studying the groups one last time. “I see what you mean. He was a small and normal looking pony.” “So a younger one I’m guessing?” “Yeah.” I nodded quickly, watching as he collected he pictures of the ponies who had wings or horns. “Well that certainly makes looking for a picture way easier.” He set those pictures aside and started separating everything into two stacks. One being ponies that were male, younger, and normal while the other one was any pony that didn’t match my description. “Where did you get all these pictures? I mean, if you have all them, then that means that you’ve already seen them all before?” If they’ve seen them, then that has to mean that they’ve already met them, right? “Actually, these are just the ponies that we’ve gotten from the show. Probably why there’s not too many pictures of them right now.” As he finally finished separated them, he showed me the pile he gathered up. There were only about seven or so in the pile so far, and not one of them looked like Zeke. “Anything?” “No...No, I’m sorry. I’ve never seen any of them before.” None of them even looked like this ‘Button Mash.’ ...Hold on… “Uh, by any chance can you find them by name?” I asked him, having a feeling that looking for something specific would help. “Actually, we have some new equipment right here.” He moved his rolling chair towards the right of the desk so that he was facing the computer. “It's called the internet.” He told me sarcastically. I frowned at him. “You can go without the jo-” “Now, now, I understand your confusion.” He carried on the charade as he turned it on. “But allow me to try and explain it to you. You see, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it, but usually you can find plenty of information by a process known simply as ‘Googling.’” He told me with air quotes. “It’s a very advanced program, so I don’t think I’ll be able to explain it to you in any more detail.” I rolled my eyes, but somehow couldn’t help but act just as childish. “Funny. You must really get ‘em laughing at Dunkin’ Donuts.” I shot back with my own smirk. With Zeke missing, I may have been upset and worried about him, but that didn’t mean I was defenseless. Far from it. He hissed and leaned back in ‘recoil’. “Oh, shots fired. Careful, you’re in a police department. ” He carried on as he signed into his computer. “And what would I be charged with, officer? 1st degree laughter?” I rose an eyebrow at him. With how sarcastic my son could get, I had more than enough practice keeping up with being sarcastic myself. I mean, really know, I was the one that taught him sarcasm for Pete’s sake. “Okay, you might wanna give up while you’re ahead.” The guy rolled his eyes as he opened up something on his browser. Of course, this only made me narrow my eyes in return. He was trying to be polite, but I saw it in his eyes. Did he honestly think I was that oblivious? “Why? You gonna give me a ticket or something?” I sat back, awaiting his response. There wasn’t a chance I was gonna take him thinking of me as some sort of fool. “Alright, alright, sorry. Just, please. You do have the right to remain silent, after all.” He tried shaking his head, getting the last joke in before ending the game for good. “So, do you know the pony’s name?” Giving a slight huff, I held off on giving out another sarcastic joke. What he did was cheating, but he had his reasons I guess. So I focused my attention on the real issue. “Yes. My son said the pony’s name was Button Mash.” He nodded and typed it in. Within seconds, he instantly started snickering at what came up. “Does he have facial hair?” “Facial hair?...Well, my son had facial hair before becoming a pony. Why?” I looked at him with a sideways glance, unsure as to where he was going with this. “Ahehe...Just wondering.” He chuckled a few more times before eventually shaking it away. “Well, I think I found him. Does he have a brown coat? Maybe a hat with a propeller on it?” I gasped. “Yes, that’s him! How’d you find him?!” “Apparently the TV show these ponies are from are really popular.” He shook his head. “Well, at least now we can ID him so if anyone ends up finding him, we can try to bring him back home.” “What do you mean ‘if?’” I leaned forward with a sudden strike of fear. “You said that he had been missing ever since yesterday afternoon, right?” He tried confirming. “Well yes, but that’s only because I was had to wait twenty-four hours to file a missing person’s report!” I complained. “...Wait, who told you that?” He looked at me with confusion. “My brother. He and I run the family business together and he’s the closest family member that lives near me.” I clarified. The man sighed before resting his face into his hands. “You don’t have to wait twenty-four hours to file a missing person’s report, that’s only in the movies and stories.” “...Then how’s come no one knows that?!” I threw up my hands in anger. “I don’t know, people are idiots.” He shook his head as it was still buried deep within his hands. “Look, if you can find anything else out about what might’ve happened, like where you think your son would’ve gone, please bring it in. It just might help us know where to-” “WAIT! NO, I’M SERIOUS!” A crazed voice shouted out. “What’s he yelling about, Higgins?!” An older man’s voice asked with an enraged tone. “This idiot keeps shouting some nonsense! I’m taking him in for questioning!” A woman’s voice shouted in response. Even with the door to the officer’s room closed, we could still hear people shouting perfectly clear. “What’s going on out there?” I turned back towards the policeman with a look on my face that spoke volumes to the cop. I was at the police station away from where most people go to file a report, so I didn't know who ended up back here. “Dunno. Apparently he’s serious.” He repeated what the hysterical voice had shouted. He then stood up and walked out from behind his desk, looking unsure as to whether or not he should go out and help with what was going on. Opening the door, he saw a police officer that was glaring at a hysterical man. “What’s going on out here?” Geez, you’d think there was an echo in here... “We got a report about this fool committing a hit and run with an ice cream truck yesterday. The witness saw a boy and his dog on the ground as the ice cream truck slammed on his brakes. And now,” The lady cop forced the man forwards with an impatient look on her face. “he’s pleading insanity apparently.” “Wait, no! I told you, I’m not crazy! It wasn’t a dog, it was a talking horse!” The lady kept on pushing him forward further away from the room. “A TALKING HORSE!” “Wait, hold on a second!” The police officer motioned for me to follow before quickly taking off after her and the ice cream man. “Okay, I think this is far enough up the hill.” Connor looked down from the side of the road we were standing down. We had been walking for four minutes as we went up the small hill of the side of the road. Both me and Connor weren’t too fazed by walking uphill with all our stuff, so we were ready to go whenever we wanted. Only...Looking down the hill, I saw that there were a few curves along the road that stretched out for a few miles. It was really nice to look at, I guess, but we were about to ride down it on a ‘longboard.’ That thought is what started to make me get nervous. “Maybe we should start a little closer to the bottom of the hill…” I offered. The cars that came past us with a mechanic growling noise had no problem going down the hill and turning the corners. It was almost as if they were trains on railroad tracks. Except, those cars had to be hundreds if not a thousand pounds or something like that, but the both of us and our stuff was nowhere near that heavy! We could end up flying at the first turn! Without wings! “If we do that, we won’t be able to stand up on the board without it taking off.” After setting down the board on the top of the hill, he put his right foot in place and held the jerry can in his left hand. “Climb in behind me,” He instructed me before pointing towards the back of the board. There was just enough room for me to stand. “All you need to do is keep your balance. I can take care of the rest.” “Uh, o-okay...If you say so.” He sounded pretty sure about what he was doing, so I wasn’t so sure about whether or not I should’ve been worried about it. The hill wasn’t steep, so it wasn’t that intimidating. Instead, the hill went down gradually. Although, when I say gradually, I meant that if we were to take off from the top of the hill then even with the small curves that the road took, we would still keep going and only be going faster. That’s what made me hesitant to get on the board, but eventually, I somehow managed to step onto it. I wasn’t a backseat gamer. Instead, if somepony was doing something wrong in the game or missing something important, it would just make me snicker behind them. It ticked off my friends, but we all knew it was better than complaining about how they were doing it wrong. Only now, I wasn’t laughing. I was shaking. “A-Alright. I’m on...” I told him, checking one last time that all four of my hooves were on the longboard. “Perfect! Don’t worry man, this is way more fun than you think!” He turned back towards the road ahead of us as he started to push the board back and forth slowly. “If. You. Say. So…” I said emotionlessly, talking one word at a time as the board kept moving back and forth every passing second. “And here we-” Suddenly, he pushed the board forwards and rested his left foot back behind his right, still giving me three hooves, or one and a half feet as far as I could tell from how this world worked, of space between me and him. “GO!” He cheered out as we started going forward. We still had around ten hooves, five feet, of space in front of us, but already my whole body tensed up. It was like a rollercoaster at the top of a climb right before it- “WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!-” Dropped.