//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: “What Am I?” // Story: The Game Theorist in Equestria (a.k.a. Mat Pat in Equestria) // by ShadowStorm7 //------------------------------// Twilight waited for the stallion to say something, but the most he appeared to be able to manage was an incoherent muttering. His eyes were still as big as dinner plates, and his breaths came slow and shallow. A constant tremor shook him visibly. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell limp, unconscious. Twilight traded an uncertain glance with Spike. Enveloping him in her magenta aura, Twilight levitated the stallion into the air. Spike held the door open as she and her cargo passed, and then together they made their way through the crystalline castle halls. The floating, sleeping stallion earned them more than a few arched eyebrows and curious looks from the Royal Guards on duty and the civilian ponies visiting the castle. Twilight ignored them, too consumed with the puzzle at hoof to bother worrying about how the three of them must look. Spike seemed a bit more concerned, offering the onlookers an occasional shrug or weak grin. They entered one of the castle’s many guest rooms. Twilight carefully set the stallion down on the bed. He was still unresponsive. “What’re you going to do with him?” asked Spike, scratching his spines. Twilight began to respond, but then a pink head popped into the room through the open door. “Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie all but squealed. “Everypony’s talking about the new guy in the castle!” She gasped suddenly, her mouth stretching into such a huge smile that Twilight wondered how the expression did not physically hurt Pinkie. “We should totally throw him a Welcome to Ponyville party! Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything!” Then Pinkie vanished into the hall, slamming the door shut behind her. The sheer force of it splintered the wood of the frame and shook the walls. Every tome and scroll in the room’s bookcases were jostled from their perches. The whole lot thundered to the floor. The stallion jolted awake. He sat bolt-upright, gasped for a second time, and let out a scream to rival Rarity’s drama queen cries. Spike covered his ears with his claws. Twilight raised a fore hoof to her forehead and just shook her head. After a while, the stallion clamped his mouth shut and took several deep breaths, though it seemed of little help. “W-what’s going on?” he stammered. “Where am I?” He gaped when he spotted Twilight, as though he had never seen an alicorn before. “What are you? And why can’t I feel my fingers? And what is that?” The stallion jabbed a fore hoof at Spike, and then stared, dumbfounded, at his own raised hoof. Twilight calmly replied, “Well, sir, I was trying to make you more comfortable. You’re in the Ponyville Castle—my castle, actually. My name’s Twilight Sparkle, and this is my number one assistant, Spike. He’s a dragon.” She paused, trying to think up a good response to the stallion’s finger query. It was a vaguely familiar word, although, as yet, she could not quite place where she had heard it before. Then she shrugged; it would come to her eventually. The stallion finally tore his gaze from his hoof to level it instead on Twilight. He glanced between her and Spike for a time, as if he did not really believe what she had told him. When he did manage to speak again, all that came out was a short, “Oh.” Heat rose in Twilight’s cheeks again. She cleared her throat and rustled her wings, forcing the blush to cool. What would this stallion think of her if he knew he was the cause? What would her friend's think if she simply took up with a stallion she had conjured out of a transdimensional portal and whom she did not know at all? You’re a mature mare, Twilight, she reminded herself, not some filly with a schoolyard crush. “Now,” she said aloud, “I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t catch your name.” After a pause, the stallion said, “My name is Matthew Patrick, but you may call me Mat Pat. That’s what all my friends call me.” “It’s nice to you, Mat Pat.” Twilight offered him a friendly smile—just friendly, nothing else. Beside her, Spike rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak. Twilight quickly threw a wing in front of him and spoke first. “Now, I’ve never seen you before, and you came through an accidental portal, so I’m quite curious. What are you?” “Well,” Mat Pat said, “I was a Homo sapien,part of the hominid race, which, when you get down to the very basics, is the descendant of the ape species of chimpanzees, but without all the hair. In laymen’s terms, a human.” A light seemed to flicker to life in Twilight’s mind. Her expression brightened, and her smile grew wider. Of course! How could she have been so dense? It all made perfect sense now! “Considering the look on your face,” said Mat Pat, flicking an ear sideways, “you already know of humans. Then you’ll know I’m telling the truth.” “Of course you’re telling the truth!” exclaimed Twilight, leaping into flight. She fluttered to hover just above the floor beside Mat Pat and continued excitedly, “You see, there’s this Mirror that connects Equestria with the human world, but it only opens once every thirty moons. I’ve been to your world twice! And now that I think about it, your name sounds very familiar, but I can’t put my hoof on it. Could I have heard of you from somewhere in the human world?” Mat Pat raised an eyebrow. Then he straightened, cleared his throat, and said, “But, hey, that’s just a theory—a Game Theory.” Twilight gasped. “Oh, my gosh! You’re the Game Theorist! The human versions of my friends watch you all the time! I mean, I’d never even heard of video games before I met those girls, but they showed me how to play their Mane-iac game and we watched your theory on how the villain’s hair could have actually come alive like that in real life. The science was perfect! Trust me, I should know,” she added with a laugh and a wink. From across the room, Spike folded his arms, scowling, and muttered, “Oh, brother…”