//------------------------------// // 25: First World Problems in A Second World // Story: The Games We are Forced to Play // by Kablam Pony //------------------------------// Connor It took a couple days, but eventually Connor was spotting fliers and advertisements for his game 'Paint Wars' everywhere in town; literally everywhere. Fliers hung from the walls, the street posts, over shop windows, on venders' stalls; if fliers weren't hanging from it, they were practically falling for the sky. It was quite impressive that Sportsen could mass produce this many fliers and distribute them in such a short amount of time. However, the townsfolk of Ponyville were not too pleased to have their homes and businesses covered in ads for Connor's game. Many of them just grumbled to themselves as they removed the intrusive ads from their windows and doors while a couple actively blamed Connor for making a mess of their beautiful town. Even though Connor denied in having any say on how his game was advertised, some of the ponies thought it would only be right if he cleaned up the town. After much arguing, Connor agreed to help with the town clean up. So for the rest of the week after Connor finished work with Rainbow Dash on cloud busting, he spent the rest of his afternoons helping the removal of the excessive advertisement. Despite the excessive advertising, Connor's game was becoming a big hit. News reports passing through Ponyville said that towns and cities were picking up and playing paint wars with a newly-discovered passion. Ponies of every kind were picking up bags of markers and chaff balloons to throw at each other. Earth ponies and unicorns were starting games in any place they could find enough room to play in and cover to hide behind while pegasi cluttered the skies with matches of their own. Even in Ponyville, ponies were trying out this new exciting game in their spare time. The school fillies and colts brought their own stashes of balloons to play with during recess while some of the older ponies would make quick trips out to forested areas to play in. unfortunately, Connor was too busy trying to help clean the town to indulge himself in his own creation. When the weekend finally arrived, Connor had pulled down the last of the fliers that were not wanted. Twilight had invited him over to the library to relax in celebration of completing the clean-up. It was just a small get-together with only Twilight, Connor, and the rest of her close friends. Pinkie Pie brought some balloons and streamers to decorate the interior while spike, Fluttershy, and Applejack busied themselves with making food and snacks. Once everypony settled in, the group relaxed around main floor of the library holding pleasant conversation. Connor sat on the couch up against the wall with some sandwiches to snack on and a glass of cool, refreshing water to wash it all down. He casually listened to all the conversations around him while watching over the proceedings. A knocking from the door made Connor instinctively snap his attention to it. Twilight broke off from her conversation with Fluttershy to see who was knocking at the door. When she opened the door, a grey Pegasus mare in a mailmare's uniform gently hovered in the air. “Mail delivery for Princess Twilight!” she said cheerfully as she reached into her mail bag and pulled out a small stack of letters. Twilight took the stack of envelopes from the mail mare and gave a kind “Thank you” to her. The mailmare nodded happily and flew off for her next delivery. Twilight closed the front door and walked over to a table to sort the mail. Connor watched with half interest before letting his eyes drift across the room again. His attention was brought back to Twilight when she called his name. “Connor, you have some mail!” “I have mail?” he echoed back and got up from his seat on the couch and joined Twilight at the table. Twilight side stepped a little to let him look, “Yes, it’s the top envelope. It looks like it's from Mr. Sportsen.” Everypony had stopped to gather around Connor and Twilight to see what would be in the letter. Sure enough, Connor examined the envelope on the top of the pile that had both his name and the address of the Ponyville library as well as the return address to Sportsen enterprise. “Come on, open it! Let’s see what's inside!” Rainbow Dash egged on. Connor picked up the letter and tore it open and pulled the contents out to read. It was a tri-folded piece of paper with a smaller piece of paper inside of it. He first read the letter addressed to him. It looked like a normal paycheck letter describing how much he was being paid and all of the taxes and fees that went along with it. He briefly scanned over the numbers and what they were for before setting the letter down for everypony else to read while he looked over the check. His brow shot up and his eye widened when Connor looked at the check he was holding in his hooves. Everyone noticed Connor’s surprise as they all looked up from the letter and watched Connor. “Well dear, what does it say?” Rarity prompted. “How much pay did you earn, sugar cube?” Applejack asked while lowering her head to look Connor in the eye and get his attention. “I hope you made a bunch of bits! Then we could throw the biggest party, EVER!!” Pinkie bounced in the air and threw confetti everywhere. Rainbow Dash was finished waiting for a response from Connor, so she hovered over his shoulder to look at the pay check in his hooves. “WHOOOAAAA! That’s a lot of zeros for a first paycheck!” she exclaimed disbelievingly. “I know,” Connor finally answered and showed the check for everypony to see clearly, “Six hundred thousand bits for the first week.” He put extra emphasis when he said the word ‘Thousand’ as he presented the check. Everypony gasped in amazement as they saw the check valued at an exorbitant amount of bits was in fact real. Connor watched as their faces shifted from disbelieving, to believing, and finally to amazement as they read and reread the number on the small piece of paper. Excited chatter broke out amongst everypony there as they talked about the surreality of the situation and what they would use that much money for. “Holy cow! Do you know what I could do with all that money?!” Rainbow Dash yelled excitedly. “I could make an endless amount of dresses with the most beautiful gems around!” Rarity fluttered her eyes dreamily at the idea. “I could give all my animal friends the most wonderful homes ever and buy the best kind of animal food for them to munch on when they’re hungry!” Fluttershy said in the loudest voice Connor had ever heard from her. “I could possibly restock my entire book collection with new copies and even have some left over to finish my old experiments and start new ones!” Twilight put a hoof to her chin as she thought about all the possible tests she could perform. “I know what I would do; hire one of the Wonderbolts to be my personal trainer as they get me ready for a spot on their team!” Rainbow Dash hoof pumped into the air and made a few quick loops in the air in mock practice set up by her imaginary Wonderbolt trainer. “I might be able to rebuild the barn again with enough left over to hire some new farm hands to help so we don’t have to worry too much about our apple fields!” Applejack beamed at the thought of future investments and the easier living for her family. “I could throw the biggest party Equestria has ever seen and invite everypony from Las Pegasus to Manehattan to come and join in on all the fun we would be having!!” Pinkie Pie fired off her party cannon all over the room showering confetti, streamers, delicious cupcakes, and games of every kind. Connor smiled gently as he watched all of them continue their fantasies about having so much money. He looked back at the check again and reread the number again in his head. “Six hundred thousand bits, huh? Wow…” his smile faded slowly the longer he stared at it until he wore a sad frown. “Connor?” he looked up to see everypony staring at him again, “Are you all right?” “Yeah!” he answered Rarity and smiled to everypony else to hide his thoughts, “I’m just shocked to see myself holding this much money! I mean, this is probably going to be the biggest check entitled to me that I will ever hold in my entire life and… I, have no idea what to do with it…” Connor’s voice trailed off and his smile fell off his face again as he stared off into space while his mind fully grasped his situation. He was standing there with probably the equivalent salary of a CEO of a large company in one check and he had no idea what to spend it on. He had always imagined what he could buy in his world if he ever had a million dollars and had dreamed about getting expensive and exotic cars and motorcycles. He thought of starting up his own race team and start racing both cars and motorcycles. Connor even thought about starting his own business with that much money so he could invest in his retirement and live a comfortable life when he retired. But he was in a world that didn’t have many of the things he desired. So that limited his choices to mostly housing, food, and owning a business. Although it was tempting, he had no desire to set up a permanent living here in this world. Then there was also that little voice in the back of his head asking, what he would do after he got everything he ever wanted? What would he do afterwards? What would Connor strive for? What would drive him to simply get out of bed every morning? It was a philosophical question that was asked during one of his high school classes and they had spent most of the time discussing it. But Connor pushed it off as if he would never get that much money at once in his life to buy whatever he wanted, so he would always have something to strive for. Now, irony had laughed at him in the face and dumped a bag of money in his lap to use as he saw fit. Everypony around him looked at Connor’s conundrum with worry as they watched the gears in his head turn slower and slower until they almost stopped. They quickly searched around their own heads trying to think of an idea to cheer him up. “Um, how about we, search for a place of your own to stay in!” Rarity offered. “Huh?” Connor looked up out of his stupor and stared at Rarity with glazed eyes. “Yes, dear! What if we searched for a place of your own here in Ponyville instead of living with Scootaloo? I’m sure her parents don’t mind you sleeping there right now, but I bet they would be ecstatic to hear that you have found your own home!” Rarity said more and more energetically as if she was working out the idea in her head as she spoke. “Oo, oo, I know of a few places that we can check out!” Pinkie shouted, “There's always somepony looking to rent out rooms for really good prices too!” Connor mulled the idea over in his head and brightened at the thought of having his own room to come back to at the end of the day. “Sure, that sounds like a good idea! Then afterwards, we can think about storing some of the money for later.” “I have an idea for how to use your money too,” Twilight spoke up drawing Connor's attention. “I know that the mayor has some projects that need some funding to complete and you could possibly try investing in some of the businesses around town. I’m sure owners would appreciate the extra money to brighten their stores up for better business.” Connor hummed in concentration as he did some quick budgeting with his check. He wanted to save about half of his check in savings before he started spending; hey, old habits die hard and trying to save as much money as possible was one of those smart habits taught by Dad. Connor nodded in affirmation, “Okay, I think that's a good idea. Do you think you can show me some of these places for rent, pinkie?” “Absolutely! I already have a couple of great places to show you!” “I’ll come along to help set up the saving account at the bank in town, once you finish picking out a place that is,” Rarity said as she shuffled beside Connor with a few flutter of her eye lids. “Uh, I’ll come too!” Spike shouted over the top of everypony. He had been listening to the entire discussion on stairs reading one of his comic books, but had stopped reading when he saw how much money Connor now had; and how Rarity was becoming far friendlier with him. Spike ran between everypony's legs and jumped onto Connor's back and forced a friendly smile while giving Connor a subtle dagger eye. Connor darted between watching Rarity suddenly become a little more friendly with him and resisting to urge to slink away from Spike's new wrath for him. He nervously chuckled as the two under tone signals of Rarity's flattery and Spike's displeasure intermixed to make a confusing and uneasy atmosphere between the three ponies. Everyone else was either unaware of the silent stand off or preferred to not get involved in it. Twilight was one part of the former, clueless group. “Well, I'll meet you at town hall to show you all the projects you can fund when you are finished with finding a new home and starting a savings account. See you later!” Twilight cheerfully waved as she trotted out of the library with everypony following behind leaving Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Spike, and Connor together in the room. Connor mentally whined as he was left with Pinkie ready to give him the grand tour around town again, Rarity who (he thought) was trying to earn some money off of him, and Spike trying to make sure Connor did not take the love of his life. It was going to be an awkward few hours with the group. ~~~ Pinkie Pie showed Connor several different options available to him in his search for a new home in Ponyville. There were whole buildings open to him to own all by himself as well as simple one bed room apartments being rented out. Some options were in better quality then others, but the price range between each place was erratic at best. A couple of places wanted more than what the place was worth, while the others seemed undercut enough the make Connor think there was a hidden problem. Connor wasn’t looking for an entire home to himself, nor did he want a single room that was cramp with barely any space to add things that he might find during his stay here. He liked the idea of having a room that was large enough to be comfortable enough to relax in and store some mementos from his travels in Equestria, but still have some life to it as to not feel completely disconnected from the world around him. At the sixth spot on Pinkie Pie’s potential spots, Connor stood before an average sized, two story home that resided down one of the several streets that branched off from the main market street. It was a decent looking place and the interior looked like it used to be a family home, but most of its occupants must have moved out for one reason or another. “Mrs. Meadows is a really nice pony. Come on, I’ll introduce you to her!” Pinkie bounced up to the front door and knocked. An older unicorn mare opened the door and greeted Pinkie Pie. Mrs. Meadows was a widowed wife and the mother of three children who had long since moved out to follow their own paths in life. After a brief exchange of words and an explanation, Pinkie Pie told her of Connor looking for a room to rent. She nodded and brought the group inside. They followed her up a flight of stairs and down a short hall way where she opened the door to a room that had a window to overlook the street outside. It was a cozy room that was fairly large with a big bed up against the left wall. The room was furnished with a couple of dressers for clothes and room on top for other items to set on it. A small closet was set in the right wall while a door led into a bathroom complete with tub and shower combo and cupboards to store hygiene products. The bed had a small night stand beside that Connor greatly appreciated. Outside of the furniture, the room was void of any belongings with the walls a barren tapestry. Connor loved it. The room had a comfortable and broken-in feel to it, like a family home you come back to after a long trip. Everything was lightly worn with use and familiarity the same way a father’s lounge chair in the living room becomes his favorite spot to relax while he reads a book and enjoys his time being with his family. The room wasn’t extravagant, but it wasn’t run down; it was that happy middle Connor desired. Despite her age, Mrs. Meadows still held herself with dignity as a strong willed mare still able to handle life’s hardships. But she still managed to have the sweet demeanor of a mother that only furthered Connor’s liking of her. After some talking, Connor was able to get the room for around 350 bits a month with a down payment of 750 and utilities included; but he had to help out around the house when asked. Connor saw it as an acceptable trade for the room and agreed to the mare’s terms. He would stop by at a later time with the money once he had everything else settled. Now that Connor had the ‘New home’ portion of his to-do list done, Pinkie said farewell to Connor, Rarity and Spike. Rarity took the lead this time and had Connor follow her to the small bank in Ponyville to set up an account for the check. As they walked down the streets of Ponyville, Rarity would continue trying to make small talk. Connor respectfully indulged in her small talk, but the small spikes of pain from his back where Spike was sitting were beginning to annoy him. Connor was mostly confident he could see Rarity’s ulterior motive to mooch money off from him and he wanted to find a way to politely turn her down, but the claws digging into his back were impeding his thought process. “… And I know our relationship has been a rough one, but I was hoping we could forget all that and perhaps we could start anew with a more comfortable friendship.” Rarity finished her babbling with a warm smile and a flutter of her eyelashes. “AGH!” Connor cringed as a particularly sharp stab of pain shot through his back. He swung his left wing back to hit the envious dragon in the head and shot an angry look at him. Ffwap! “Ow! Hey, what was that for?!” Spike stared angrily at the back of Connor’s head until he saw his angry stare thrown back by Connor and Spike looked away in shame. “Goodness, you two! What on earth is going on?” Rarity stopped to look at both of them glare at each other but she shrank a little when Connor turned his disapproving stare at her. “I appreciate the idea of trying to make up for past attitudes, but trying to earn favors from me with sweet talk is not working.” “W-What are you talking about, dear? I was merely trying to make small talk with you Connor,” Rarity tried to avoid the subtle accusations with another smile. “I can tell when somepony is trying to suck up to me and it doesn’t work on me. So please stop trying to get money out of me,” Connor stated a little bit more bluntly to get his point across. Rarity gaped slightly at him and his claim. She tried to counter his claim a couple of times, but gritted her teeth and continued walking again. Connor trotted after her hoping to regain some good graces and not anger the unicorn. “I understand everypony needs money, but let me decide who and when it goes to them,” Connor gave an apologetic smile. Rarity grunted in response and the group fell silent the rest of the way to the bank. Once at the bank, Rarity helped Connor go through the process of making a savings account. Once all the paper work was signed and set to the side for filing, Connor was free to divide his bits as he saw fit. He wanted to keep half of his money for his own purposes and the rest for anything else he wanted to help fund. He made three different accounts. The first one was his saving account for emergencies or for buying things he needed like food or clothes. The second account was for rent. Even though he may never have to worry about missing a payment or not having enough to pay, Connor made it anyways to satisfy his need for organization. The last account was for project funding. This was where he would store the majority of his money to use on whatever idea or project he came across that he wanted to help complete. Connor explained the stallion behind the counter that he wanted 200,000 bits to be deposited in the rent account, 100,000 bits to be deposited in the savings account, and the rest to be stored in the project funding account. The bank teller gave a tired “Yes sir,” before turning around with Connor’s check in his magic and sighing loudly to himself. Connor paid no sympathy to the bank teller and was glad that he did not desire to become a banker and have to deal with all the paper work that this poor fellow was going to have to fill out; not his chair, not his problem. With the banking taken care of, Rarity departed Connor to return to her shop as she had orders to finish. That left Spike and Connor to finish the last order of business with Twilight at town hall. The trip to town hall was equally silent with Spike as it was with Rarity. Neither of the two spoke to each other, but Connor wanted to glance behind him to see how Spike was doing. Temptation won out and he looked over his right shoulder to see Spike gloomy and downtrodden. Spike glanced up and locked eye contact with him before looking away in shame. “Alright, what’s wrong?” Connor asked with a hint of seeing the situation as a small annoyance. “I-I just want to say I’m sorry for the way that I acted,” Spike confessed, “It wasn’t nice and I should have known-” “Don’t worry about it.” Spike glanced up to see the back of Connor’s head turned slightly to the side with the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile visible. “I can get why you probably did that, but you have to remember I’m not from here and I have no intention of staying in this world for long. Which means, I have no intention of stealing your girl.” Connor watched Spike squirm uncomfortably which made Connor grin even more. “W-What?! That’s not-, Rarity is not my girl!” Spike sputtered in his defense making Connor laugh. “Relax! I won’t tell anyone!” he comforted, “I’ll just tell Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie…” Connor paused to see Spike’s face grow more and more red as he listed off all of his closest friends before laughing again. Spike dug a heel into Connor’s side making him jump a little. “Hey! Easy back there, or I’ll throw you off and let you walk the rest of the way!” They both laughed together as Connor pushed open the door leading into the town hall where Twilight was standing not too far off by the front desk. “Ah, there you two are!” Twilight trotted over to Spike and Connor and met them half way, “I have a few projects already picked out that I think you might like Connor!” Spike hopped off of Connor’s back and waved goodbye. “You can have fun with that, I’m going to head back so I can read the next issue of the Power Ponies!” Spike waddled out of the building leaving Twilight and Connor together. Connor shrugged and faced Twilight to see what kind of ideas she had. “Whatever, so what kind of projects did you have in mind?” Twilight drew her attention back to Connor and led him over to a back room with filing cabinets and a table with papers scattered over the entire surface with a pony pouring over them with a calculating eye. On a small table set aside sat three stacks of forms, reports, and notes. “Alright, so I have come up with three different projects that I think will be good to start with. You can put at many bits as you like into each project and depending on how much you decide to put into each project, I can give you are good estimate on what will happen. Most of the forms and paper work will be taken care of by the town hall staff so all you have to do is say how much funding you want to put into each project and I’ll have the necessary paper work filled out.” Connor listened intently to Twilight's explanation while he stared at the three piles of paper with his chin in one of his hooves. “Okay, sounds pretty easy. But can I trust you and everypony involved that my money will be put to good use and not wasted?” Twilight gave him a hurt look, “Of course! Why would you think that somepony would do something like that?” He closed his eyes and raised his hoof as if to apologize, “Sorry Twilight, it was just a reactive question. My Dad taught me to be careful with how I use my money, so whenever I deal with money I get really cautious. I always ask that kind of question even if it’s someone I know I can trust. I know you won’t do anything bad. So what kind of projects do you have?” Twilight turned back to the table and pointed her hoof at the first pile of papers, “The first project that I wanted to suggest is with construction and repairs. This project would deal with fixing any kind of major damage done to the roads and buildings of Ponyville. Despite this being a small town, a lot of the buildings and roads get damaged and need to be fixed. So funding this one would help pay for materials and labor costs required to repair any of the buildings and streets in Ponyville.” Twilight moved her hoof and pointed at the second pile of papers. “The second project that I have in mind is investing in some of the businesses in Ponyville. This project would focus on improving some of the stores around town like improving store fronts, importing better products to sell, and overall improving the look of stores to entice more sales from visitors. This project would put more time and effort into increasing the sales from tourism and creating a bigger flow of money for Ponyville.” “Tourism?” Connor asked with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, eventually ponies are going to want to visit Ponyville to see the ‘Princess of Friendship’ just like ponies travel to Canterlot to see Princess Celestia.” Connor raised his brow even more, “Okay then; continue.” Twilight pointed at the last pile of papers, “The last project I wanted to show you was our parks and recreation project. This one handles the repair and maintenance of our parks and fields that surround Ponyville. It keeps them clean of any trash and makes sure all the plants and lawns are trimmed properly. It also makes sure that the fields are not filled with craters from Rainbow Dash's crash landings.” Connor chuckled at Twilight's deadpan statement. “So which project do you want to fund and how much would you like to contribute?” Connor scanned over the three piles and let his mind start planning out the rest of his budget for the three projects. “Well, keeping the town in good repair is always a good thing. No one likes to live in a run-down town. However, increasing business through the town would be best that way Ponyville can support itself without having to rely too heavy on outside funding from somepony like me,” he smiled at his own little jest, “Keeping the parks and fields looking clean and in good repair would be nice, but it’s not entirely needed.” Connor looked at Twilight with his decision made, “I have about 300,000 bits left over from my check. So I'm going to put 100,000 bits into the construction and repairs project to make sure the town is looking at its best. I'm putting 150,000 bits into the business investment project; that way, Ponyville will have a better chance at raising its own money easily. Finally, I’ll put the last 50,000 into parks and recreation. It’s nice to have good looking parks around town, but it’s not my priority. We'll start with this for now until I get my next pay check and then readjust funding as needed.” Twilight nodded in agreement, “That's a very wise choice. I can tell you right now that the town and businesses are going to look a little better now and have some new items to sell. The parks will have to make due with a few dirt patches and the fountains will take some time before they are repaired. But this will definitely help Ponyville! I'll get all the forms ready and filled out with the amounts you want to donate. I'll talk to you later once everything is done.” “Thanks Twilight,” Connor turned and headed for the exit, “I’ll see you later, then!” He waved goodbye and left the town hall wondering what he was going to do now.