Character Unlocked: Button Mash!

Chapters

Press Start to Begin!
Every Pony Hates Tutorials
Mission Recieved!
Game Guide, thy name is Button Mash!
It's Dangerous to Go Alone
"Connor" Has Joined Your Party!
Pony's Creed: The Mind's Animus
Two Players...No Co-op Mode
Sword Art Offline

Press Start to Begin!

Knock Knock Knock!

“Come on Zeke, you need to wake up! You need to leave for school in fifteen minutes!”

“Ugh…” I moaned, sitting up from bed after a few seconds of lying there. Why did I actually help them all the way until three o’clock on a school night? I can’t even feel my fingers, I’m so tired.

I went ahead and figured I was just really tired, which I was, as I looked around to help wake up a little more. My room wasn’t exactly clean, but I didn’t care much. It wasn’t dirty either, so my parents would let it pass.

As I kept looking around, I couldn’t help but notice something else was different. My room and everything in it looked a little...Bigger? I was sure that my eyes couldn’t be fooling me, but rubbing them to be sure I saw it was all the same size. Big.

I just shook my head at it all. I just woke up, why else would everything seem a little off right now? So knowing I had to wake up before I got ready for school, I reached over towards my mini-fridge that was right beside my bed. It doubled as a nightstand too with the lamp on top of it, but I didn’t care. I was just after what was in the fridge.

Diet Coke. The one thing that woke me up in the morning.

Only, something was a little weird about that too. I was able to open my fridge just fine, but getting the can of soda was hard...No, frustrating...No, impossible.

I could feel the metal coldness on the end of my arm, but for some reason, couldn’t pick it up. So to help get a better look at it, I literally rolled out of my bed and landed on all fours in front of my mini-fridge to see what was going on here.

But at that point, it didn’t take me long to figure that out. Because out of the corner of my eye, I saw my closet doors. They were made to easily slide open, and the whole door itself had a mirror from top to bottom. So it was pretty hard not to see my reflection.

Because it was impossible to see my reflection.

Right ahead of me reflecting off the mirror was a figure. A small figure that stared right back at me. Copying my blinking, breathing, and jaw-dropped mouth. Because ahead of me was a literal animal. One that had chocolate brown fur, and auburn colored hair with an ever spinning propeller hat on its head.

And as I moved my left arm up, it moved its front left arm up. Following me exactly as I moved my arm forward towards the mirror. And as I made contact with the mirror, I saw that at the end of my arm, was a hoof. Identical to the reflection. Of me.

I slowly put my hoof back on the ground and slowly closed my mouth. Staring at the reflection for as long as I possibly could before something snapped me out of it.

Knock Knock Knock!

“Zeke?! Come on, you need to get up! You only have eight minutes before the bus!”

“M-mom…” I called out, knowing she could hear me since I didn’t hear her walk away from the door. But I did hear Button’s voice, the exact one from Button’s Adventures, call out in place of my own voice. “I don’t think I should go to school today…”

After a slight pause, I heard her groan in annoyance. “Zeke, it’s just puberty! All teenage boy’s voices will get messed up like that! That’s no reason to miss a day of school! Especially since you have a French test today!”

“Mère! Parle le français est la moindre de mes problèmes!” I called out. Not daring to take my eyes off the mirror.

“Ugh! What are you even talking abo-!” As soon as she opened the door herself, she saw me on the floor. All two feet of me. “Wha...What?...”

“Is this reason enough to skip school?!” I asked her with a wide-eyed expression. Of course, the talking part about my whole situation just made her freak out even more.

“AH! You can talk! And-and-what did you do to my son?!” She asked me, taking a step back from me.

“Mom! I am Zeke! What’s going on?!” I asked, as if she’d actually respond to that with a good answer. Still, what else would I tell her?

BARK! BARK-BARK!

At that moment, answering my mom’s scream of complete fear, our dogs came running towards my room. An Eighty-five pound Boxer named Apollo, and a sixteen pound black fur pug named Gremlin.

Bursting in on the scene, they saw me and thought one single thing. ‘Protect Mommy!’ So not even questioning it, they both scrambled to reach me first.

“AH!” I yelled out, trying to jump away from the dogs. Luckily, my mom grabbed Apollo by the collar. Keeping him from ripping me apart like his weekly chew-toy. Gremlin on the other hand…

She pounced for me. Stopping behind me as she bit down on my hind leg in a way to attack me. That’s why we called her Gremlin, or why I called her Gremlin to be more exact. She always gnawed at peoples, and Apollo’s, legs in a way of attacking. In a way, she was a little scarier than Apollo. More so to the point where she always bullied him. Too bad I was the next victim.

“OW! OW! Cut it out Gremlin! It’s me!” I kept yelling out in attempt to get her to stop. Sadly, that didn’t work out so well as she kept on trying to bite my leg off. So I quickly shook her off and crawled up the dog steps that led up to my bed as best I could. Giving me the higher ground and advantage.

Not only that, but I was still her primary owner. So I knew just what made her calm down. No matter what was going on. And the instant she ran up the steps and onto the bed, I called out to her again.

“Pizza.”

At that moment, she stopped growling and perked her head up at me. Taking a second look at me. “Yes Grem. It’s me! Zeke!” I told her, raising my hoof slowly to try and pet her. But since I was so new to the four leg thing, I fell to the side from the not so stationary bed of mine.

This let Grem come near me and sniff my face. And after a good ten seconds of this, she started licking me. “AH! Ew, Gremlin! Stop licking me!” I called out, rolling back up to see Apollo still growling at me with his hackles raised. Good thing I knew how to let him know I was me.

“Apollo! Calm your fur!” I ordered. Making him stop growling for a few seconds as he thought it over. I was the only one that ever said that. And Apollo was the only one that knew the command. Still, that didn’t keep him from growling again. “Calm...Your fur!” I ordered again, making him stop again. This time, tilting his head a bit to the right as he heard me say it just like always.

Knowing it wasn’t exactly safe, I inched towards the end of the bed carefully. Extending my hoof slowly to pet his face. My mom loosened her grip a bit, but kept a good hold on him. He sniffed my hood just like Gremlin did, then realized that I was Zeke. I guess since I was still in bed when I became Button Mash, my bed rubbed off on me or something and covered me in my original scent.

That, or their fur that was all over my covers made them think I’m in the pack or something.

“Zeke?... Is that really you?” My mom finally asked, loosening Apollo’s grip further.

“Yeah...At least...I’m me in my mind?…” I honestly didn’t know how this worked. All I knew right now, is that I was Button Mash. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I was Button Mash.

Every Pony Hates Tutorials

“How?! How is this even possible?!”

As my mom paced the living room floor, with me and the pug sitting on the couch watching her, and Apollo eating some food in the kitchen, she tried putting all of this together. Me somehow taking this way better than her.

“I don’t know…” And a lot of good I was doing too. “I just...woke up and I was Button Mash.”

“Button Mush? What?! Is that what you’re calling yourself?!” My mom asked as she turned towards me. Angry that I was making up a name for myself at this problem. “You get turned into a chocolate colored horse with a spinning hat, and you’re going to give yourself a name?!”

“What? No! I’m not making it up! Button Mash is just what this pony’s called. I didn’t pick the name or anything!” I told her with a shake of my head.

“Ponies…Wait a second, you look like one of them don’t you? One of the characters on that show you watch. My Little Pony.”

“Yeah, I am…” Sadly enough, my parents were the only ones that knew about that. No one else knew about it, and it was purely accident that she knew.

You see, I have my OC as my computer wallpaper. I figured if I liked the show, maybe I should get one just for the heck of it. But recently my computer needed to be reset thanks to viruses and she saw the picture. I tried to just keep my mouth shut about it, but since she was paying for my computer, she held it against its will until I told her the whole thing.

“Still, I don’t know what happened! We got home at three in the morning, I went straight to bed, and I woke up as Button Mash! That’s it!”

I guess at this point, I should explain just what I was doing that night. You see, me, my mom and my uncle all work as a family business as wedding photographers. The last three days have been the worst though. Monday, we had a military ball to take couple’s pictures that took until eleven or midnight. Tuesday, we had two different engagement shoots to take care of. Spending all day to do and wasting any time I could’ve spent on video games. And on Wednesday, we had a whole wedding to photograph. We were supposed to be there until midnight then ride back home, but the wedding had a few issues that made us get home at three in the morning.

Now four hours of sleep later and I’m a colt half my original age.

“Wait...My Little Pony...I know that name from somewhere.”

“Well, you should mom. The show and it’s toys were around when you were born...I think…”

After a quick glare from her from my smart mouth-err-muzzle, she continued. “It was on the news… On Sunday. Something about New York, but I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

“Wait, a news broadcast? When did this happen?”

“Again, on Sunday. You were so busy playing one of the new games you just bought that you didn’t hear me trying to call you into the living room.”

“Oh yeah, hehehe…” I tried chuckling that part off, but it didn’t help the embarrassment go away.

“Anyway, it was something about two of these human sized unicorn-things. They talked about harmony coming to New York, but I thought it was some kind of advertisement for the show, so I focused on editing pictures.”

“Harmony? Two big unicorn-things?” I gasped. “Maybe they’re the Princesses, Celestia and Luna! They probably know what’s going on! We should go to New York too!”

“New York? Zeke, we live in Florida. We don’t have much spending money at the moment, so how could we afford a flight or road trip? We still have a scheduled wedding tomorrow, and I don’t think they’ll believe ‘We’re sorry. Our son was turned into a small horse with an out of style hat.’ Finally, how do we know that would help anything? I don’t remember something like that being mentioned.”

“What?” I deadpanned. “But...But I’m a pony! How are we supposed to just ignore this?!” I might’ve been the pack mule for carrying all the equipment for weddings, but that didn’t mean anything!

“You know that’s not what I’m saying.” She told me, frowning at me. “I’m saying that we can’t go to New York. It’s just not worth it. Now, I’m going to try and set up a doctor’s appointment. Maybe they’ll be able to help us out with this problem. You don’t have to go to school, and you don’t have to do any chores. For now, just stay put and do not leave this house. Don’t even go towards the windows. Our neighbors might call animal control or something if they see you.”

“R-really?! Mom, I’m the size of Gremlin right here!” I told her, gesturing to Gremlin, who just stayed next to me. An oblivious look on her face. “I could pass off as a dog! With a propeller hat! We volunteer for the Humane Society! Why would they ever call animal control?!”

She started closing curtains around the house. “I’m just worried they might realize you’re not a dog. Stay inside.” She told me. Leaving to cover up the rest of the windows in the house.

“Ugh! I can’t believe this!” I yelled out as I fell back into the couch.

I went from seventeen to, what, seven years old?! I had a whining voice as opposed to my deep-ish voice. I didn’t have a beard anymore. And most importantly, I don’t even know if I can play any of my video games anymore!

...Oooo-kay, so maybe that wasn’t the most important thing there was. Still, it was pretty messed up! I needed something to do right now, but what? Outside wasn’t an option. My friends were all at school. I couldn’t use the remote with these hooves. Nothing to do!

rumble…

Well, maybe there is one thing. I was starving. And never got to eat anything except breakfast and no school lunch yesterday, and I didn’t even have time to drink that diet coke I was trying to get earlier. And if I wanted to get food, I needed to get it myself.

Too bad I wasn’t used to being Button yet. I crawled up the doggy steps to get away from Gremlin. Mom carried me into the living room despite my arguing. The only time I had actually done something was rolling out of bed.

So with my new objective in mind, I scooted towards the edge of the couch. Stepping onto the foot rest that was in front of the couch, I looked towards the ground. Becoming fast friends with it as I leaned too far in. Crashing onto the wooden floor face first.

“Ow…” I muttered as I made my way to all fours again. Walking slowly wasn’t much of a problem. As long as I kept the pattern going, I’d be fine. Front left moves with back right, and vise-versa. Since my head was a whole five inches off the floor, I wasn’t afraid of falling over too much.

So I went ahead and tested out my walking. Going from the living room, to the kitchen, to the dining room/office, they used that room to edit the pictures we took, and finally back to the living room. These three rooms were built in a way that was like a circular track. And following the track for a few laps, I got walking down pretty quick. I even tried running the last one too. Except I ran over Gremlin who was getting up from the couch at this point.

“Well...I think that’s good enough anyway. Now. Snacks...Snacks…Where are the snacks...” I said, looking around. Only to see that the cabinet the snacks were in were way too much out of my reach. Which was just perfectly ironic if you ask me. I was out of school, but I still needed to solve long and annoying problems to get something.

I guess I’ll get the snacks the same way I got them when I was seven as a human. Because when I was seven, I ate the snacks as if it was a race against time.

Knowing just what I did ten years ago, I went into the dining room/office and found an office chair that didn’t have any bags on it. And knowing that my mom was probably busy secretly having a heart attack, I knew that I wasn’t getting any help. So I put my head against the pole that connected to all four wheels and started to roll it back into the kitchen. The only problem was that the stupid chair was locked or something. So it wouldn’t swivel around like a normal office chair. Making me ram into the side of the doorway and hurt my head since the momentum carried through the chair and into my head.

“Dang it! I’m gonna get a concussion over a Pop-Tart!” I rubbed my head in pain before pushing the chair again. This time, getting the chair in place.

“Got it! Now I need something to open the cabinet… A string or something that I can hook onto the handle...Wait a second, that’s it! The controller!”

I had a Gamecube controller in my room that I always kept over the years. It came with the first ever game system I got, the Gamecube obviously. I had to be even younger than seven when I first got it. Maybe five or something. Still, it was something I treasured. Even after the Wii and Wii U came out. I had to get rid of my Gamecube since it broke when we moved. Dumb movers. Still, I refused to lose all of it, and kept the controller. For nostalgia reasons, you know?

And since it was the only corded thing I could get right now, I went for it. I could’ve gotten my phone charger or 3DS charger, but I decided against it. Would you try and unplug something from an outlet with your teeth?

Anyway, I knew the controller was on top of my desk, so that just left climbing up to it. So getting to my old worn-out computer chair, I swiveled it around and carefully jumped on it. Keeping Gremlin in mind since I moved around just like her now. Funny. I guess the student has become the master. Well done Grasshopper Gremlin.

I then climbed onto my desk, careful not to step on my laptop as I got in position to try and balance myself on my hind legs. It was on the built in desk shelf that was a little higher than the desk part itself.

Carefully, I pushed myself on my hind legs to reach the back scratcher. Only to over shoot it and fall backwards on my computer chair. “Darn it! It’s right there! Just a little further and I can get the dang cord!”

And the moment I said that, I just realized. I’m trying this hard to get a friggin’ controller! I mean, really?! This is pathetic! I can’t reach it without stepping on my laptop! I need a stick to get the controller! But there’s nothing in here that can claw my way up there!

Claw? Claw...A claw...Claw hand-er, no… “A C-Claw Hammer!” I yelled out, looking around my room to spot a black bag beside me and the desk.

I quickly jumped down and dug through the small bag, pulling out a few things. “Screwdriver? No. Pliers? No. Half eaten cracker?” I said confusedly. But smelling it, I realized it wasn’t a cracker but some cheese. “EW! How did cheese get in my tool bag?! Aha! Hammer!” I yelled in victory. Pulling out a hammer a little shorter than my small little leg. The handle was pretty small that I could manage it in my hooves, but it was too heavy to hold it like that. Guess I’ll just use my mouth like in the show.

*One Minute Later*

“Ugh! Pfft! Ptwi! Cough-cough! Ugh...” I kept spitting again and again, licking the ice that had been forming in my mini-fridge over time. The ice on the side of a fridge didn’t taste good mind you, but it tasted WAY better than who-knows-how-old cheese!

“Okay...Cough! No using my mouth to carry anything unless I clean it with a rag or something…”

At this point, I was getting pretty ticked off. All of this work, and I still haven’t gotten a snack. I wasn’t stupid though, I knew that I needed to get used to this. If I was gonna get used to being Button Mash, then I needed to learn how to be him.

So not wasting anymore time, or tastebuds, I picked up the hammer with my hooves and tucked it under my arm to keep it from falling. Then, I made my way up to the chair. Then the desk. Then, sitting in the right spot, I got the hammer ready in my hooves. Raising it up to the top of the shelf before the weight made it face downwards in my hooves.

Finally catching a break, I hooked the controller and brought it down. The light piece of plastic hitting the desk and falling to the floor. As for the hammer, it nailed me right in the face. Giving me a painful hit to the head as I tripped off the side of my desk and onto the floor.

“Owowowowowowowow…..” I repeated over again, rubbing my head in pain. At this point, I couldn’t tell if I was lucky to not be a unicorn, or unlucky to be an earth pony. Still, I finally got myself the cord I needed. Now I could easily go and get myself a snack.

But picking up the controller, I realized that it wouldn’t fit in my mouth all too well. If anything, it would either hurt my teeth or slip out of my mouth.

I couldn’t get on that chair and then the counter with it in my mouth, so I had to get a bag. Luckily, that wasn’t so hard because I just looked at the black bag I got the hammer from.

It was a black saddle bag. Any tools I had, screwdriver, hammer, tape, cheese apparently, was all on one side, and I usually packed something fun to do in the other. I wanted a saddle bag instead of a tool or messenger bag because you could set saddle bags anywhere. On railing, the back of a chair, a windowsill, anywhere that normal bags couldn’t. It had equal weight so it wouldn’t bring a chair down with it, and it didn’t need flat surfaces.

Which was now perfect for me since I was a pony in need of carrying stuff.

So I quickly put the hammer and controller into the bag, the side without the cheese. I wasn’t born yesterday...But I guess I was born today, kind of… Then I went under the two bags. Getting them in place before working the strap under me and clicking them together. Fastening the bag and keeping it from falling off. Which was good since the bags were a little big for me, but not by much.

“Okay world! Time for round two! Now let’s see just how hard this is going to be! No mercy!” I yelled out in battle cry. Feeling prepared to take on every little problem the world had for me.

“Zeke? I realized you didn’t eat anything yesterday. Do you want me to make you something to eat?”

Hearing my mom call me from the kitchen, I slid from all four to the ground. Annoyed that the world just made me do all of this, and make me yell at it like an idiot, for no good reason at all.

“I give up…” I said, muttering to myself before getting up to leave my room. “Yeah...Thanks Mom…” I sulked back into the living room, sad about all this. With how easy everything was going for me, it felt like I was on easy mode.

Too bad I didn’t know just what I was in for. Because this was going to be anything but easy! In fact, this was going to be an adventure bigger than Legend of Zelda! More serious than Elder Scrolls! And…Um...And randomer than…Randomer...Dang it, I had a good monologue going too!

Oh! And randomer than an Indie Game!

This was my story! And it was just beginning!

Mission Recieved!

“So...Very...Bored!”

As I was laying on the couch once again, video game controllers and portable game systems strewn all around me, I just leaned my head back in frustration. Staring at the Xbox 360 main menu that was up on the living room TV.

I had just finished trying nearly every single game I had. Well, at least the ones that were fun anyway. It wasn’t so bad as I thought originally. Some of my games were still playable even with hooves.

Viva Piñata? It was the first one I tried out to ease into using the controller and it wasn’t so hard actually. I tried Rock Band, and the mic was pretty easy. As well as playing the guitar if it was on easy mode. Every iPad game like Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, even that My Little Pony app-hey, it was free!- were all pretty easy. I even managed to beat my Fruit Ninja high score again! On the laptop, turn-based games and even Minecraft and TF2 was great to an extent!

But for every game that I could’ve gotten used to, there were my favorite games that were now impossible! Halo? Didn’t have a chance! Call of Duty? Even if I went with the sniper class or Leroy Jenkins class, what I like to call me with a shotgun and akimbo pistols, was difficult! Only seven kills and I got killed a good 20+ times! Most of them from players who were running up towards me!

Uncharted, Sly Cooper, Brütal Legend, Scooby Doo, Madden, Assassin’s Creed, Katamari...Okay, I was bad at that game before being Button...Mass Effect, Sonic, Link, Mario?! Nope! Died on the first level, took forever on tutorials, and Rage Quit on most of them!

At this point, I was playing XCOM on my laptop while trying to figure out what else to do. I was losing my mind, and all my failures weren’t helping me. I needed to get out of here.

My Mom had left in order to get supplies. And with how she said it, she sounded as if we were making a bunker for Fallout.

So with how nuts she was acting right now, she told me to stay put inside and just play video games until she got back. Normally, I would be perfectly fine with that, but I needed a reason to get outside right now.

I didn’t really like outside since we literally had nothing to do and my friends never came over except for the games. But I did like walking around the street or something whenever video games weren’t cutting it for me.

And this time was no different for me. I needed to go outside and run around or something. The dogs were locked up so I didn’t have to worry about them. And the clock read 2:30, so I had a good hour before the bus made it from the school to this street. Meaning, I had plenty of time. And even if I took a walk, what were the chances Mom would get back before me? Especially with a grocery list that would put Twilight to shame.

“Alright then, that’s exactly what I’ll do!” I said outloud to myself. So, knowing what I was going to do, I made a few precautions. I opened the message box on the Xbox system and started typing a letter. I wouldn’t send it to anyone, but it would be up on the screen so Mom could see it right away.

Mom- Went for a walk around the neighborhood. If you get back before I do, don’t freak out again, I’ll be back soon.

-Zeke Mash

After going over it, I saw that I put the end of Button’s name on my own. It was confusing, but I l guess it didn't matter anyway. I mean, it was annoying enough picking every single letter since I couldn't use the keyboard that plugged into the controller. She would get the message either way.

So going the extra mile in case she somehow did get back before me, I swept up my iPad and 3DS. Both of them along with their respective chargers since they were already plugged in. She might ground me and take away the first games she spots, so hiding them with me was the better plan.

Having that all taken care of, I went into the kitchen and latched the refrigerator handle with the Gamecube controller’s cord. I opened it and saw that I could only get a few things from the bottom half of it. So I sighed and got a few Caprisuns and bag of two apples. In case I got hungry or something on the walk.

Once I got more than enough of what I needed, I closed the door and put away all the stuff. Deciding to go ahead and put the bag of apples on the cheese side of the saddle bag since they were in their own secluded bag.

“Bye Gremlin! Bye Apollo! See you when I get back!” I told them as I went to the door. Using the cord once again to open the front door. Luckily Mom didn’t lock it since she knew I couldn’t help her open it.

I then simply pushed the screen door open and went through. I took in the fresh air, well as fresh as the air in the suburbs could get, and started running up to the sidewalk. Getting on and running even further down towards the end of the road towards the main part of the suburbs.

I looked around the empty streets. Seeing how it was all pretty silent. Which was pretty obvious since the busses were still making their way here. I heard a dog bark every few minutes as I kept running, Button having way more stamina than I did. He was almost as fast as I was, not saying much though, so I made some pretty good headway too.

I got a good three minutes away from my home before actually getting a little tired, and that was from actually following the confusing roads and not cutting through yards. It wasn’t a problem though since I was watching where I was and saw the signs. I knew the exact way to get home, and there was no way I’d lose track of where I-

“Is that an ice cream truck?!”

“What?! Where?!” I asked myself, my attention now only focused on the sound of an ice cream truck in the distance.

There was no doubt about that familiar jingle! It was an ice cream truck driving around! Probably trying to catch up to a bus stop so they could make some easy money. I swear, those ice cream trucks were as smart as business tycoons!

“Wait...I don’t have any money…” I frowned in self-pity, realizing my problem. Those darn ice cream trucks may have been as smart as business tycoons, but they were just as evil!

“Who cares! You’re a pony now! Some kid’s bound to lend you something!”

“Oh yeah!” I said, realizing that little bit of information. Mom said all this pony stuff had been going on since Sunday! So there had to be either some kid Bronies or someone who was willing to help me out going after the truck too! And now having a way to catch that ice cream truck and get the ice cream, I started sprinting for the sound. Nothing holding me back anymore.

I cut the corners on the side of the road, crossed through people’s backyards, scared some big muscular man that was walking the girliest chihuahua on Earth, and I may have run through a flower garden or two…

But in the end, I made it! I turned the corner and saw ice cream truck driving off at the other side of the road. Having just given some treats to a few kids that were either too young for school, or weren’t at school for some random reason.

“Hold that ice cream truck!” I yelled out, running like mad as I started going running again.

The younger kids that were with their parents saw me and started laughing at ‘The cute Doggie’, while the out of place teenager with a skateboard just stared in awe. Really dude? You not in school and you’re riding around on a skateboard? At least do something that won’t get you caught by the neighbors!

But I ignored that group as I kept on running by. After the world’s most oblivious ice cream truck driver.

“Hey, wait up!” The teenager called out, coming after me with a phone at the ready.

“And lose the ice cream?! Yeah right!” I called out, not even looking behind me as I kept on going. I was so close. “ICE CREAM MAN! STOP!” I yelled out as loud as I could, Button’s high whining voice helping me to be louder than I usually would. Only, this guy had to be deaf or something because he still didn’t stop! If anything, I think he just drove faster!

“Just…Wait a minute!” The teen said, catching up to me on his skateboard. Since we were going downhill a little bit, it wasn’t too hard. As he caught up to me, he took a picture of me running and skated closer. “Here, let me help!”

This moron wanted to help me?! I didn’t even know this dude, let alone trust him! Why should I even consider letting him help me chase down a truck?!

“Uh...The ice cream?”

...O-oh yeah...I said, actually going over it again. I looked towards the guy, thinking of just how there wasn't a problem with this when my common sense started kicking in and telling me, 'this is the worst idea you've ever considered.'

That's what made me get a little confused though. Usually my conscious and common sense were like this...Imagine that I twisting my fingers around...Or hooves...You get the point, they always thought the same. Most of the time, I didn't even need my conscious to tell me what was a good idea and what was plain out moronic.

But now for some reason, my conscious was telling me something different my common sense was. This made no sense, so I had to figure out some way to-

"You want my help or not?!" The guy asked, snapping me out of my train of thought. Since we were on a very small hill, he was started too pick up more speed than I did with running. And of course my running wasn't exactly perfect so I was still going a little slow at it.

“...Okay, fine!” I called out towards him. And seeing him get ready to catch me, I decided that it was the only way I was catching the truck. I had to be less than twenty-five pounds, counting my saddle bag of stuff, so it shouldn’t have been too hard.

So not giving another thought, I stopped in mid-run and jumped towards him. Putting all my trust into hoping he would be able to catch me. And of course, the most ‘surprising’ thing happened…

No really, it was surprising what happened next. He actually caught me. He was able to catch me, and while the skateboard swerved to the side, he got it back on track and only picked up the speed with the added weight down the hill.

Coming up towards a fork in the road, the truck turned right. “Okay, hold on! I’m going through the yard!” He told me, turning to just ride his skateboard through the grass to slow down so we could get to the ice cream truck without hitting it.

Too bad he didn’t look down in time to do an ollie.

“No, wait! ST-” At that moment, his skateboard ran into the sidewalk that came before the yard. Getting caught and sending both of us off his skateboard and forwards from the momentum. He let go of me and sent me even further into the air.

Before I could even try and bearings, I flew face first into the grass below me. Making me start to lose consciousness from the fall. The only thing I remembered before blacking out was that stupid ice cream man stopping directly ahead of us. Opening the door and looking around to see who was trying to catch up to him.

Yep. Ice cream trucks are evil.

Game Guide, thy name is Button Mash!

"Hey...Hey buddy...Zeke?...You awake?...Hello?! Zeke, wake up! K.K. Slider's about to start playing!...Ugh! Hey Tapper? Can I get a chocolate milkshake?!

Trsssssssssshhh...cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-Ting!

"Thanks!"

"Huh...W-what's going on?..."

As I started waking up, I heard some odd singing in the background. Along with some talking around the room and the sound of something being poured out and sliding down a counter. I was face down on the wooden counter, and still a little out of it. So I just tried focusing on one thing at a time. The first thing being the music that was playing since it was the loudest.

"Oh! And another one for Zeke?!"

"Huh?" I asked, wondering just who was saying my name. The voice sounded high-pitched and whiny, while my voice-well at least the few words I've said-sounded like my normal voice. Which was completely different than Button's voice, as it was deeper.

Trsssssssssshhh...cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-crash!

"Ahehehe...Zeke, you were supposed to catch it before it slid off the table..." The voice instructed me before calling out again. "Can we have...Just one more?" The voice asked sheepishly.

And after a huff of annoyance, the sound of a mug being filled up came again. Followed by the mug sliding down the bar table I was still resting my head at. Only this time, the one who was next to me, caught it for me.

"I got it. Here ya go." The voice told me, nudging the mug ever so slightly. That way the mug would come right in front of me and I could catch it. Sadly, I was just raising my head and adjusting to the lights that were above me. So I didn't have time to catch it as it just started sliding past me again.

"Ah! Hold on!" The voice said, passing by me as he caught up to the mug that had gained a little speed in its sliding. "That was close..." Too bad his mug started sliding in the other direction.

"Hey! I'm still drinking that!" It said in a whiny tone, running past me again to catch up with his milkshake. But just as he stopped that one, the opposite mug started moving again.

"Just how slick are these tables?!" The voice yelled in annoyance as it stopped behind me and turned around to face his cup. Which was nearing the edge of the table by this point. So forgetting about my mug entirely, he just ran back over to his and dived for the end of the table. Catching his mug just barely before it shattered on the ground.

Crash!

Too bad no one was there to catch the other mug as it shattered on the other side of the table where the bartender, Tapper, was standing.

The voice just chuckled weakly as it came back over to sit with me. Tapper simply filling up the fourth and final mug and walking over to us. Placing it in front of me instead of sliding it down. Then he just walked over and started cleaning a random mug with a rag from his back pocket.

"Thanks Tapper!" The voice called out, sitting right beside me on a barstool just like me. Taking a sip of its milkshake.

By this point, I had woken up enough to see just what was going on. For some reason, me and Button were both sitting in Tapper's. Facing towards a stage where K.K. Slider was playing a song. Ironically, my favorite one out of all the songs he played. Of course, it was about to end by this point.

But of course, it was only more confusing as I looked around. Because all around me were familiar video game related faces. Sly Cooper and his gang drinking from mugs of lemonade, Nathan Drake was drinking what I guessed was normal alcohol, then Wreck-it-Ralph, who was having some root beer. Spread around an entire table towards the back was Master Chief and a few soldiers from some random war game all chugging beer.

There were multiple familiar faces all around the place, and the one who had been beside me the whole time was no exception.

Button Mash.

"Finally! I thought you were just going to sit there like a Deku on a Log!" He told me with a smile. "Nice ta meet ya!"

"Huh? Button Mash? But...I thought I was..." I lifted a hand to touch my face, only to see it was back to normal. My nose, my hair, even my beard was all there like normal. I was in normal clothes too. Jeans, my usual tennis shoes, a solid grey shirt and my usual black zip-up hoodie I always wore.

"Yeah, it's pretty confusing to me too..." He said, taking another sip. "Oh, and be careful of milkshakes. They can give you the worst headaches."

"Uh...Yeah, I know. Everyone knows that..." I said, taking a sip of mine regardless. This was all so confusing right now, and none of it was adding up. Just a minute ago, I was on a skateboard getting help from a moron, and now I was here in a video game bar. What?

Apparently, Button saw just how confused I was and tapped me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, it's just a dream. At least, that's what I think it is."

I looked towards him with confusion. How did he know it was a dream? And how come all this was happening? I never got lucid dreams before. Sure I remembered a few here and there, but...Never like this.

"How's come you're so calm about it?" I asked, looking at him with concern.

"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-"

"Okay, I get it!" I said, cutting him off before his whining, high-pitched voice ruined my ears. "I get it, you've been having fun. Just, please not right now." I told him, taking another sip of my milkshake. "I've been having disaster after disaster trying to adjust to being you."

"Oh yeah! So, did you get the ice cream?!" He asked, now really excited about that part of it all.

"No. That idiot that was trying to help me made me face plant on the ground." I said with an annoyed attitude. "Why did I even go after that stupid ice cream truck?! There was no way I was going to catch it anyway and-wait...How did you know about that?"

"Huh? Oh right. Well, since I'm in your head, it's like I'm watching a...Watching a...What was it called again?...Oh yeah, a Let's Play! I've just been watching every once in a while, and after I helped Eddie with the Raving Rabbid problem, I wanted to see how you were doing! Then when you heard the ice cream truck it was way more fun to watch!"

"So...You were spectating?" I asked, giving him a deadpanned expression. Well that's just great. All the pain I'm going through, and Button just gets to sit in my head and watch me suffer!

"Well, yeah I guess you could say I was...Hey, are you okay?" He asked, giving me a confused and slightly concerned look.

"Okay? Yeah, I'm...*Yawn* I'm fine, why..." I said, suddenly feeling tired. There wasn't even any warning to it, I was just tired. I tried taking another sip of the milkshake to stay awake, but that wasn't working at all. "I'm just a little ti...Little tire...You know, I think I'm just going to rest here for a little bit..."

"Are you sure that you're..." But before Button could even ask, I fell back to the table. Falling asleep instantly and making the milkshake fall to the floor ahead of me. Once I was asleep, I just faded away from Tapper's because I was starting to wake back up instead of being in literal Dream Land.

Button looked up from where I was, only to see Tapper standing there with a frown. "Uh...Since this is his mind and all, that means I don't have to pay right?" All he got from Tapper was a shake of the head and him holding out his hand. Expecting to be given money for all the shattered cups and chocolate milkshake that had been used up.

Button sighed as he gave Tapper his whole bag of multiple types of currency. Bits, Normal Cash, Rupies, and Septims alike. "I guess not. Okay fine, I'll just go over to Cooking Mama's for lunch." He said, walking off. And that was how The Hero of All Games, was defeated by a mere Barkeeper who was not cheap in any way, shape, or form.

It's Dangerous to Go Alone

"Hey! I think he's waking up! Come on, wake up!"

Before I could even figure out where that voice had come from, a sharp pain spread across my right cheek. Followed by an even more painful feeling on the left cheek. It didn't even stop there, either! For a good four more hits on both cheeks, I couldn't even begin to open my eyes in fear of having whatever was hitting my poke my eye out.

"Stop! That's not helping anything!" As soon as the second voice had sounded out, the pain suddenly stopped. "What are you thinking, slapping this...Thing...Quick, get two sandwiches from the freezer."

A few seconds later, I risked opening my eyes to see just what was going on around me. And all I could see is that I was inside some small room that was completely metal on the roof, walls, and floor. Ahead of me was two seats and some window which I couldn't really see out of from the way I was on the ground.

Towards the left of me was some container that was opened up. With someone looking into it to try and find something inside. Finally to the right of me, was some kind of door. Still completely metal with no paint or anything, just grey metal.

"Yes, you're awake!" That first voice called out from where that container was. Pulling out two small little yellow wrapped up blocks and bringing them over to me. By this point however, I was able to realize exactly who this was and jumped to my feet...Sorry, hooves.

This was the maniac who 'helped' me reach the ice cream man with his truck, and managed to wipe out on his skateboard at the last second worse than a YouTube skater.

"That's a relief! For a second there, I thought you hit your head too hard on the ground and...Uh...Y-you know..." He started saying, not to sure of how to finish that sentence because of the circumstances about all of this.

"Died?" I asked him with a tired tone in my voice from all the pain I had gone through. And yes, it all really did hurt. My head was still extremely sore from hitting the, thankfully not concrete, ground. Plus all those hits to the sides of my face hadn't helped at all. "Yeah, well maybe if you didn't send me flying after you forgot to-Look where you were going!"

"S-sorry man, I was just a little excited! I mean, I was helping one of you pony things out. It's just something that seemed cool at the moment, you know?" He asked, hoping I would buy that dumb excuse.

"Just...Don't do anything stupid like that again..." I said, not having the focus or energy to stay mad at him. The pain kept my focus from going everywhere, so I couldn't concentrate on much. I just slowly looked around the room and got situated before continuing.

My saddle bag was still on my back and was still closed, not to mention it was still a little heavy on both sides. So I guess nothing was taken for now. Next, I realized that the room we were both in was a little weird. It was bouncing up an down a bit, and the window ahead of me was off to. Everything outside was passing by us as the seconds ticked forward.

It was when I saw the dashboard directly under the window, that it all clicked for me. The small container that skateboard teen was digging in was a cooler. The yellow blocks in his hands were ice cream sandwiches. And finally.

"W-were in the ice cream truck?" I asked out loud with a nervous look on my face. That evil, evil, ice cream truck?

"Yeah! See, after we crashed-" When he saw my glare, he fixed his comment. "I...Crashed...He came out to see if we were okay. I was fine, just face-planted into soft mud." Oh, lucky you...You fall face-first into mud, I hit hard-ground and have a meeting with Dream Town! "But you had blacked-out. As soon as he saw what happened to you, plus me explaining it all, he apologized and asked if he could take us to the vet or something."

"Wait...I knew he was speeding away from me!" I exclaimed angrily, looking around the van we were in. Only at that moment, I suddenly lost my balance as the ice cream truck made a sudden left turn. Making me run into the right side of the truck, then fall to the ground after he was done turning.

"About that..." That second voice from earlier, which I could only assume was the ice cream man in question, said from the seats up front. "I, uh, thought you were a stray dog. I didn't want to run over you because you caught up, so I tried speeding up. I didn't know you were one of those ponies that the news and radio station had been talking about."

"A DOG?!" I yelled out in annoyance, about ready to push this guy out of his own truck and pelt him with Bomb Pops, Firecrackers, and Crunch Bars! All while I ate his entire stock of Fudge Bars! Was this guy as stupid as the teenager?! Am I surrounded by idiots right now?!

I mean, sure. Some ponies on MLP could be mistaken for animals. Shave off Tiara's mane and tail, and you might just be able to pass her off for the county state fair. Do the same for Pipsqueak, minus the pirate outfit too, and you can maybe think he's a baby cow with his spots. Take away Zecora's jewelry, and you might think that she's Blitzle the Pokémon.

But Button Mash as a dog?! What Psycho from Arkham Asylum, forced to listen to Lavender Town, while riding an F-Zero Racer, and constantly being hit over the head by a Big Daddy, would ever think that?!

"Well...You were brown..." The ice cream man countered with a distracted voice. Oh! Well then! I guess while were judging Equestrianites by their coat color, let's not forget the others! Rarity's white! Guess she's Slenderman! Applejack's orange! She's gotta be Charizard! Cheerilee's purple! Well, that probably means she's an XCOM Chryssalid!

"Okay...Look, I think I'm fine enough. If you can just take me home so I can think of how to cope with this, that'd be great." I told them, not wanting to take anymore punishment. Especially since I'm going to take another type of punishment when I get home
...
...
...
"AH! Oh God, Mom's gonna kill me when she finds out what I did!" I suddenly yelled out in utter horror, looking around frantically. While I did, my sudden yell had scared the ice cream man and made him swerve the van to the right. Still, he was just barely able to correct the path and keep anything bad from happening.

"What, why?!" The teenager asked in sudden fear, thinking he should be scared just like me. "All you did was go out for ice cream, right?! What's wrong with that?!"

"What's wrong with it, is that I wasn't supposed to leave at all!" I told them. Well...Maybe I still have some time! "Quick, how long have I been out?!"

"About forty minutes." The ice cream man up front told me without missing a beat. Well at least someone is cooperating in he-

"FORTY MINUTES?!" I yelled out in frustration. "We've been driving in this ice cream truck, for forty minutes?! I might not know the address, but I know for sure that the vet is not that far!"

"Well...You see, the vet in our town was closed for the day for some reason. So we were driving to the other one. But it's still a good ten minutes away." The teenager told me awkwardly, holding out one ice cream bar he still had in his hands. "Ice cream?"

"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."

I just stood there. Staring at...this *insert beaver project* dumd *insert donkey* for thinking that it was his job to hire a random ice cream man, and take me to a *insert what clopfic fans read* vet...This had to be the God *man, those beavers are getting publicity* biggest moron I had ever had the worst luck of meeting.

Please...Help me understand something for a moment...Would you kindly?...Tell me, I'm not the only one that thinks this guy is a complete and total moron. Because, I can not be the only one that thinks that. Right?...

...Right?...

RIGHT?!

"So...I'm guessing that's a 'No' on the ice cream then?" He asked me, seeing as how I walked up towards the front of the ice cream truck and got onto the passenger's side and sat down. Taking the only other chair that was left on this van. Leaving that kid to fumble around in the back.

Maybe it'll knock some sense into him. "Uh, alright then...I guess I'll just eat both of them then..." Or maybe not.

"Connor" Has Joined Your Party!

As it came to five in the afternoon, Zeke's Mom, Diana, finally got back home. She had been out since one O'clock getting all the groceries that would last the whole family at least two weeks worth, thinking it was best to prepare for the worst. Of course, since she had never seen the show for herself, and didn't take them into consideration anyway, all she got was food that a regular young pony would eat. So no juice, no sweets of any kind, and not even any snacks. Just greens, salt licks, and sugar cubes. Those last two things being the main reason she was out for so long.

"Zeke! I'm home!" She announced as she started to get the keys out with her free, right hand. She had only a few bags of the army of groceries in her left arm.

But after opening the screen door and putting the key into the lock, she turned it around absent-mindedly as she went over how this was all going to play out for the next few weeks. Not sure how much of that speech on the news and internet was actually real, or how fast it would work. She had no idea how her son would react to it, so she tried preparing for that too. With the only way she knew how to keep his mind off of it:

By buying three brand new video games and an expensive gift card for Steam. More than enough to keep his mind off New York for at least a week at the most. And if that didn't do it, then she would just agree to play that Call of Duty game. Who knows? With Zeke as a pony now, maybe she had a chance to kill him at least once.

Turning her attention back towards the lock though, she realized that instead of unlocking it she relocked it. Silently cursing herself, she unlocked it again and went through the door. Looking around to try and spot her now small pony son.

However, the only thing she saw was a mess of video game cases and CDs all over the place. Along with an Xbox that was on and wasting electricity. Not even bothering to look into it even more, she just frowned and pressed the touch-sensitive power button of the Xbox 360. Never once paying any mind to what was on the screen.

"Zeke! You know, just because you're a horse now, that doesn't mean you can pretend you were raised in a barn!" She called out with a slightly angered tone. But she couldn't hold that long as she put the groceries she had down in the kitchen and started walking over to her son's room. Only to find the light off, and no pony to be seen.

"Zeke? Are you downstairs?" She called out confusedly, walking over towards the stairs and going down them. It was the bonus room, and that was where the PS3, Wii, and the other, older, 360 was. But instead of finding him, Diana just saw the lights off and no sign of Zeke to be seen.

"Uh...Z-Zeke?" She asked, getting a little nervous. There's not that many other rooms he could be in, except for one that was just a few steps from the top of the staircase. And knocking on the door, she put her ear to the door. "Zeke are you in there? Did-did you fall in or something?"

No answer. Although if what she asked was the case, she doubted that Zeke would say anything anyway. So to try and be sure, she opened the unlocked door and found that the bathroom was empty too.

"Where did...Apollo!" She called out, making a B-line for her bedroom. Where the boxer was still locked up in his cage and resting. With no signs of a pony body laying around somewhere. Oddly enough, Diana wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing by this point.

"Zeke?!" She yelled out worriedly, opening Apollo's cage in desperation that he would be able to sniff him out or something. Same with Gremlin. Only after running all around the house to see what all was different since being locked up, they just ran back up to her to say hi.

Ten minutes later after checking every inch of the house three times over in hopes of finding him, Diana finally stopped as she went to her phone. Calling to report her missing pony child.

"Okay. You're just fine as far as I can tell."

"Well, there's the first bit of good news I've heard all day..." I muttered to myself as the doctor started packing up all his tools. Keep in mind that this wasn't a normal doctor-duh-but instead a horse veterinarian. The ice cream man originally drove us to the vet, where they told us that they couldn't do anything. But thankfully, they knew someone that took care of horses and gave us the address.

I didn't complain or say anything because their reactions wouldn't have helped anything. So after a smaller drive than the first time, we came to this ranch-like place and he just did some kind of check-up and asked me some questions.

I didn't mind answering any though, because this guy had to be the smartest person I've met all day. That wasn't saying much, but it was still a comforting thought.

"So since you're one of those My Little Ponies, are you able to talk to regular horses?" He asked me, having just a small notepad and pen with him. He already wrote the questions out, so he just wrote the answers I put. It wasn't to a Twilight level of notes as much as it sounded, just 'yes' 'no' 'maybe' 'yes, but only if...' Stuff like that.

"Uh...I dunno." I said with a shrug, looking around me and seeing how a horse was in a stable that we were beside. "Let's see..." I said, getting up and walking over to stand in front of him.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked casually as I nodded my head up. As if I was acknowledging him or something. Of course, the only response I got from him was him blinking towards me. Not saying anything to me at all.

Wow. He's as non-responsive as bad AI...

"Pffft. Tell me about it." I muttered as I turned and walked back towards the doctor. "Sorry Doc, but it looks like he's not in the mood." I told him, only to see him stopping mid-thought from writing something down.

"Wait. Didn't you just talk to her?" He asked, confused about why I said something before.

"No...Why, did he neigh at me or something?" I asked, mentally sighing in relief that I didn't actually 'neigh' when I said the word. It was bad enough when Trixie did it on the show, I didn't want to go around hearing myself make pony noises whenever I was talking.

"Well she didn't say anything to you. But I thought I heard you agree with her about something just now."

"Oh yeah...I guess I did agree to it. But you had a point, that horse was pretty non-responsive."

He just shook his head and furrowed his brow at me. "I didn't say anything. You sure it wasn't Sheila over there? Or, did your Princess use some kind of magic to talk to you?"

"No, it was definitely a guy's v-...Button?...Was that you?" I asked, looking up towards...My head I guess. He said that he was spectating every once in a while. And even though this Doctor wasn't half as interesting as the beginning of Fallout: New Vegas, it was at least more entertaining than a loading screen.

But of course to make me seem even more crazy than before, there was no answer.

"I guess it doesn't matter..." He said, getting up and putting the small notepad in his back pocket. "Besides, I think I got enough info. If anymore ponies like you come through, at least I'll be able to help them out. Funny...I never thought my granddaughter's favorite TV show would actually turn out to become a reality."

"You and me both Doctor." I said, only paying attention halfway by this point. What just happened...It was the same thing with the ice cream chase. And that was the time where Button said he was watching first person. So, was that voice Button Mash?

"Okay, I'm back."

Snapping me out of my thought, however, was the one person I thought I'd never see again. It was the teenager. "Just wanted to tell you that the ice cream guy just left."

"He what?" I asked with a deadpan tone. He cannot be serious right now! The only way of getting back to our neighborhood was that ice cream truck! This Doctor might've been nice enough to give me a free check-up, but I know that he wasn't just going to drive us a good two and a half hour trip back to our home. "Why would he just leave us here?!"

"Oh. I told him it was okay to go." He told me with a smile that just screamed: Help! I'm a brain that hasn't been used in months! It's dark in here!

"You what?!" I half-asked, half-yelled at him. "Why in the name of all things virtual, real, and Equestrian would you do that?! You just left us stranded here!"

"Well, we couldn't expect him to take us to New York, could we? He was being pretty nice driving us this far, you know." He told me with an 'obvious' voice. The kind that just makes them look dumber when they say the wrong answer.

"But we're not going to New York, you....Ugh!" I yelled out, kicking an old stool that was inside the stable with me and the Doctor. Knocking it over, but not much else. "What gave you that idea?!"

"It was all over the news. So I just called my parents and told them what was going on, and they told me to call whenever we reached New York. I have an uncle that lives up there." He told me with a smile.

"What kind of parents..." I started, but didn't finish. Parents were the last thing I had been thinking about, and that wasn't good. It looked as if I had run away from home by this point, and my Mom was gonna kill me.

Dad was out of town. Visiting his parents, my grandparents, about something that came up. They lived in Florida too, but lower towards Miami. We lived towards the middle of Florida, and no not Orlando. And please don't rub that in, there have been many a birthdays that I have begged for Disneyworld.

From what I gathered, the horse veterinarian lived even more north than us. Underneath Georgia by about fifty...seventy-five miles possibly. Too long to walk or something, that's for sure.

"Whatever," I said, shaking that argument out of my head. "I guess your next challenge is this: How do you expect us to reach New York, oh Big and Moronic Teenager?"

"I have a name, you know." He gave me a small frown at what I called him. Probably not focused on the 'moronic' either.

"Actually. No. I don't. Because you never told me...Ever." I reminded him with a frown.

"Oh yeah. Hehehe, oops..." He said awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. I swear, I think I'm getting dumber just by being near him. "I'm Conner. Nice to meet you in person, Button-"

"The name's Zeke. Not Button Mash." I quickly interrupted him. Wanting to get back on track. "Question still stands. How do you plan on getting to New York now?"

"That's an easy one." He said, turning towards the Doctor. Who was just watching this whole thing play out. "Hey, horse-vet guy? Can we borrow a car or something?"

"Really?!" I yelled out in anger. How is this guy...You remember back at the ice cream truck stop? How there were some young six and four year olds? Yeah, I'd rather ask their ice cream for help than from this guy!

Of course, the Doctor just laughed at Connor. Who just laughed along with him in hopes that it was a 'jolly' laugh instead of one that a dumb clown deserved. "Well, sure! I got a truck you can both use."

"Wait, what?" I asked, now forgetting everything at that moment and looking towards the doctor with pure surprise. "You're just gonna give us something to drive?! Seriously?!"

"Well, I think you two need it more than I do. Besides, it's not like I don't have something else to drive. I have an old stick-shift in the barn I can lend you two for your road-trip."

"Uh, sir..." I said, gesturing him to lean down so I could try and tell him something that the cheering Connor wouldn't be able to hear. So picking me up and putting me on a stool, he bent down to hear me. "I'm not sure if we'll be able to give it back. I'm not even sure if he's got a license..."

"Don't worry, he does. He was waving that piece of plastic around so much when you were walking to the stables, he might as well have been a rookie police officer." He reassured me.

Conner then finally stopped his own personal cheer and turned towards the Doc. "Alright! Let's get going then! Just tell me which way to go to New York, and we'll just gun it there!" ...Okay, maybe reassure isn't the right word.

"Now hold on. It's already starting to get a little dark. By the time you two reach Georgia, you'll have to stop at a hotel and waste away what little money you two probably don't have." He warned us. And he was right, we were flat out broke. I didn't even bring my wallet to show who I was before I turned into Button.

"I think it's best that you two wait until morning to head off on your road trip." He suggested, giving us the choice to stay here. "My wife always makes too much food for just the two of us, so I'm sure you'll both get something. Except, I think the only thing we can give you is the mash potatoes." He told me with a frown.

Meat...One of the things I realized soon after coming here that I had to go without. I told him that ponies in the show were shown drinking punch and alcoholic cider, and eating cupcakes and cotton candy. So I was entitled to most human food as far as I knew. Just not meat of any kind.

"But, I think you can eat the same thing horses can eat, right?" He asked, also reminding me how I could eat stuff like grass and hay if I was hungry enough. Grass didn't taste too bad, and in the show Spike got 'Hay Fries'. So maybe they would taste like McDonald's fries?

"Alright then, I guess we can stay here until tomorrow. Right But-err-Zeke?" Connor asked me. Coming up with a good idea for once. No elderly horse veterinarian would want to rob a brain-dead teenager and a small young pony.

"Yeah, that sounds nice for a change." I agree for the first time of the day as I stayed on the stool. Letting the two of them go inside.

I used this time to think one important thing over. People all over the world were turning into ponies. Luckily, I was in the same country the Princesses are in right now. Because if they were in India or something, I wouldn't even give a second thought about trying to get to them. I'd rather live out the rest of my life as Button Mash than risk travelling across seas without any real help.

Still, if every pony's turning into ponies, then what was going to happen next? I know that all of the world turning into ponies would take a good few months at the very least. And even then, I'm not sure there's even enough Equestrianites in existence to cover Earth. Still, it had to be going on everywhere.

So the two most important questions that I wanted to figure out...Was this:

How were Connor and I supposed to get to New York ourselves?
And why exactly do I get the feeling that it won't be a normal old road trip?

Pony's Creed: The Mind's Animus

Nothingness. Complete and utter nothingness without any color or shape around me. I wasn't even standing on anything, I was just floating in an empty void of darkness. Not only that, but there was nothing around me either. There wasn't even a sky above me, just blank darkness. Heck, I didn't even have anything with me. My saddlebag, my snacks, my video games, and even the propeller hat was missing. It was just me in Button's body floating in the middle of nowhere, motionlessly. It was as if I was in a powered down television screen.

Then, everything started to fade from my memory. My classes, my family, my life-style, everything started to blur until eventually it was all a scattered dream that was like a far-off memory. I could remember everything that happened yesterday without any trouble though. Waking up as Button Mash, leaving the house, coming to a rancher's home. It was all so easy to recall.

But everything before that, I couldn't tell if my life depended on it. I had a Mom, but what she looked or acted like was dust in the wind. Everything I learned in school seemed even less memorable than it already was. Not even the video games I play could surface in my mind.

What's happening to me?

Huh? Who's there?

That second voice...

Button? That you?

Zeke? What's going on? How's come I'm forgetting everything?

So Button was having the same problem as me. I couldn't remember anything except for a few vague things. I could remember what school and video games were, although I couldn't remember anything about them. I remembered that I at least go to school and that I have a Mom and Dad. Only a few things like that plus common sense was about all I seemed to know.

Other stuff like what foods I liked or hated, if I was allergic to anything, what cars were, or what countries were outside the US, none of that I could remember. Of course, Button didn't know all of that to begin with, so he didn't forget anything about my world.

Although I still remembered a bunch of stuff from his world.

Hey Button? What do you remember exactly?

Not much. Our names, that I have a Mom and Dad, that I'm from Equestria, the Princesses names, what video games are...And just really obvious stuff I guess.

That's everything I remember...

As soon as it all clicked together for me what was going on, a small blur faded into existence. It started as a floating orb, but soon expanded more and more before blending into the darkness around us.

That's when the black void around me started to brighten up with a dull grey, if that made any sense at all. The emptiness I was standing on, or floating perhaps, the blur started to focus on first.. First it surrounded the ground around me in a circular shape and started to alter it. Which in turn made the feeling of gravity a reality and centered me on the now completely grey ground.

That's when parts of the new formed ground started to form two solid colors. Green and light brown. There was no real detail about it, just that the ground directly under me, behind me, and in front of me was brown while the ground to the sides of me was green. It looked almost as if I was in the unfinished beta version of a video game. The colors didn't blend in, it looked like it was a green carpet with a light brown rug going across it.

But soon enough the carpets became a little better looking and realistic when textures started to appear. The green carpet started to have tiny points stick out of it while the brown carpet started growing lumps underneath it. All while both colors started to become 'Earthy' and look more natural.

And as the ground beneath me started to render more and more, I looked up to see that the rest of the blur started to spread around everywhere else. The ground further out and quickly gained its color, as did the black void above me. Showing a blue sky with one bright yellow circle. And as the ground around me expanded even more, going faster and faster in the process, dark brown cylinders started to sprout out from the ground. Branching out with thinner dark brown cylinders before growing brownish-orange colors around them.

It all kept going and getting more and more detailed until it went from looking like a video game to being real. Not one area was left empty as it was so colorful an full of life! Except, instead of being excited, I almost felt...Annoyed. Not about all of what was happening, but something else entirely.

But could you really blame me for being annoyed?! I mean, I had to walk all the way there by myself! I mean, the sun's barely in the sky right now! In fact, if I was a pegasus I could probably fly up to that cloud and see the moon!

And how's come she expected me to be up ten minutes earlier than this?! WHY?! Class didn't start for a good twenty minutes, and all I was gonna do was sit at the swings until the bell rung! There aren't even any tests or anything going on!

Class? Why do I suddenly care about class?

I looked around where I was once again, trying to figure out just why I was thinking like this. Only to my surprise, everything around me was moving. The trees, small patches of flowers that were off to the side, even the tiny rocks around the dirt path I was walking along were all going past me as if-

I'm walking...

What-What's going on?! I'm not walking around! Button, is that you?!

No, it's not me. But this feels so familiar...

Immediately, I looked down out of the corner of my eye and saw my front two hooves going forward with a bit of a groggy pace. As I witnessed my legs moving by their own free-will, I noticed how my eyes were squinted out of both drowsiness and anger. I wore a frown, almost a glare, no matter what I was thinking.

It was as if my body was being controlled by someone else. Not only that, but even though I could still control my own thoughts, I still felt annoyed about the whole thing. Was this how Button felt with me walking around in his body?

Suddenly it all dawned on me. None of this could possibly be real. I may still be Button Mash, and this may all look real, but it couldn't be. I was nowhere near the rancher's house, and this path I was on could not be anywhere near his house. Or anywhere in the state to be more specific.

The path had what looked like acres upon acres of thinned out forests to the sides. Not to mention, there wasn't a road, billboard, or piece of garbage to be seen. Nor were there any car tracks on the ground below me. Only horseshoe prints left in the dirt.

Probably goes without saying, but I don't think we were in Florida anymore.

So as I could do nothing but watch the rest of me walked forward, the blur then started to make one final thing. It formed a 3-dimensional, thin and tall triangular-shaped, red building with a few other colors spread out. The top then started to form a golden bell and the ground around it started to make a few other objects form. Like a swing set, seesaw, picket fence, flagpole, and tons of other playground stuff to go with it all.

And to top it all off, a picnic table formed out of nowhere along with two other ponies that were my size. And when my head took over and turned to face them directly, their names instantly popped into my head. Featherweight and Rumble.

They were my two best friends. Seeing how I was bullied on the first day, Rumble helped me up off the ground and helped me adjust to the school. And because I always had a video game with me, Featherweight, who sat next to me, became instant best friends. Sure we all weren't as close as Sweetie Belle and her friends but...

...Still. Pretty close...Wait. Huh?! They're not my friends!...A-Are they?

"Button? How's come you're here so early?" The blue pegasus colt, Rumble as I was somehow reminded, had asked.

"My Mom told me to or else she'd take my Joyboy away." Another voice said as my body sat down on the same picnic table that these two were at. The voice hadn't come from Rumble or Featherweight, but instead it came from me. I had no control of anything by this point. I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, and I couldn't even control how I felt or all of what I thought.

And after I had said that, memories of my Joyboy came to me all of a sudden. I had a good twenty plus games on it alone, and have even had to buy a few new buttons for it because of the all-nighters I spent playing the mini-games and quick-time events that were on the Daring Do Explorer Series.

"That sucks. Still, maybe it's for the best. At least Ms. Cheerilee's not teaching us today. She said that we're having a class picture today." Rumble went on to tell me.

"Meh. I guess it's better than a math test or something. Still, I was only two levels away from the coolest boss battle in Colt Eastwood 4!" I said in a whiny voice.

"Wait! You mean the one with the Pony Chieftain, levitating cowboy wagons, and the flaming arrows?!" Featherweight yelled out in complete surprise.

"Yes!" I cried out happily. But when I turned to see that Rumble wasn't following what we were talking about, I explained further. "It's the most over the top boss fight in the game because some pony tricked Colt into drinking a poisoned drink. But instead of normal poison, it's poison that makes everything go crazy around you! So after it kicks in when Colt sleeps for the night..."

As the rest of me kept on going on and on, I tried to go over what was happening. I was talking with Featherweight and Rumble outside of what looked like the schoolhouse from the show. And apparently there was picture day today, and my Mom...No, Button's Mom had made me -Button!- she made Button wake up early for it!

Oh yeah, I remember this! I hated whenever we had our picture taken at school! Mom always said waking me up early would help me look more awake in the picture.

Wait a second, how do you remember this?

Before I was given an answer though, I stopped talking and all the noises had stopped. My talking faded away even though my mouth was still moving. All the sounds of the birds or wind had stopped too. Soon enough, I noticed out of the corner of my eye how the sun was moving from just above the tree line to the middle of the sky.

As that happened, almost everything else stayed the same. The schoolhouse stayed completely untouched, as did the rest of the place. But all three of us at the picnic table had faded away. I couldn't feel anything, and I didn't even see my nose or any stray hair from my mane.

Instead, I saw how something else started to appear near the schoolhouse's front door. One after another, separate smaller blurs started to take form from thin air. All of which were organized into rows with the rows in the back on top of small platforms. Then the blurs started taking the forms of ponies that were Button's size. And they were all looking forwards towards a pony that was the size of the mane six or most other grown up ponies.

Then in what seemed like a blink of an eye, I went from being at the picnic table to appearing in the middle of that group. All with my nose back in front of my face and one or two stray hairs in my eyes. But on top of that, there was something else that I couldn't shake off.

Button, how's come I feel empty? I mean, it feels as if a part of me is just...Missing?

Well, Mom told me that I wasn't allowed to wear my hat in the picture. And now that there's no video games or anything to talk about, it's kinda hard to ignore.

...

No matter what thought came to my mind, I couldn't find any way to question him about it. It was probably because I felt upset because of the hat all of a sudden, but I just couldn't bring myself to ask. I didn't actually understand it other than that it was a part of him or something like that, but apparently that was a good enough explanation.

"Okay every pony. Look towards the camera and smile." The photographer announced. Sounding like he obviously didn't want to be here.

Regardless of that fact, every pony and Button's head turned and put on their 'Get this over with already' smiles for their school picture. Because Button wasn't allowed to wear his hat or bring his Joyboy however, he was even more ready to get this over with.

Wow. You can just see how much that guy hates his job.

Huh? What do you mean, it just looks like he doesn't want to be here. How can you tell it's his whole job?

Just by how he acts. He couldn't care less about what you guys are doing in the shot. He's more concerned about location, the lighting, and the background then the actual class! Heck, he has all these other photography tools that he doesn't need stacked in a pile!

Since we both knew how Equestria works, more or less, I could still remember how everything worked here. What you did for a living in Equestria usually had something to do with your talent. And I could see that this photographer had a Cutie Mark that had something to do with cameras. That in mind, plus all the photography equipment next to him, it was a safe bet that he liked more artsy pictures. None of these boring, classroom shots that no one except for the parents like.

"Now every pony say cheese." The photographer said with enthusiasm that was faker than a school play. But all of us just smiled anyway.

Wow, you're right...No wonder I got away with putting on my hat.

Wait, what do you-

Before I could finish, Button then pulled out his hat and snuck it onto his head since Cheerilee probably couldn't see him from the back.

You're obsessed with that hat aren't you?

Well...It was a gift...

"CHEESE!" The entire class cheered as the flash of the camera blinded us all. Which was odd to say the least seeing as it was almost noon and the sun was shining down on us without a single cloud in the sky.

Or rather, it was midnight. With one of those movie perfect starlit skies with a full moon hanging directly in the center of it all.

In that split second of a flash, the world changed again. Except this time instead of being outside in the forest, we were inside the middle of a great city of sorts. Everything was still forming and becoming more and more detailed, and although I could feel my- I guess you could call it presence- I had no body to control. It was as if I was a spirit that could feel what was happening around me.

The city I was around started to finish very quickly. Off in the distance, probably fifty yards away was a giant fairytale castle. Lit up to show every decorative design of it from its tall towers to the white stone material that it was made out of. There were more windows on it than I would dare to count and the towers seemed to be taller than anything else around us.

And although I couldn't feel it, I saw that instead of standing in dirt paths I was on a stone walkway. To be more specific, I was at the front of a plaza with a stone walkway, multiple paths that extended from the sides, and a statue surrounded by a flowerbed in the middle of it all. The statue was all made of the same material, on a stone base.

The flowerbed was protected with a few metal posts and a single chain that connected each of them to the next until it went around full circle around the flowerbed. With plaques equally distributed on four sides that explained just who the two that this statue was representing.

Of course, anyone who looked at this statue would immediately know who it was. They were probably the most famous at what they did, and were the star behind the castle that sat behind the two of them. They ruled at what they did and no one could really ever hate them.

Is...Is that...

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

Directly in front of us sat the two kings of all cartoons. In fact, they were the kings of all of Disney World. Especially Cinderella's Castle and The Magic Kingdom that we were at right now.

Wait a second, how do you know who these two are?

I-I don't!...Or at least! I didn't know who they were until now! The only thing I really know about Earth is the video games that you've played and that it's all humans instead of ponies. Their names just...Came to me.

Like Rumble and Featherweight...

Soon enough, a body started to form. Ending that weird spirit feeling and replacing it with the feeling of having a body. Only this time it wasn't Button Mash who we were walking around in. It was my body instead.

I was in my wedding photography uniform while standing on a step ladder with a camera in my hand. This really big wedding was taking place inside Cinderella's Castle and since my parents and another photographer that worked with them was covering the reception and everything that went with it, Mom had asked me to get some shots of the castle in and outside.

This was all three years ago though. We were hired to photograph the wedding and because it was at Disney World, we got paid tickets for Magic Kingdom for the day. It was the best 'working' day of my life too!

So why did it seem like I was reliving this moment as if it was real?

Hey Button? When we were at the schoolhouse with you taking your picture. Did that happen to you sometime in the past?

It was a few months back. And when we were...Watching that, did you, like, know what was going on?

Yeah. My Mom -your Mom, sorry- woke you up early to have you go to school. Then I suddenly "remembered" a few things about your Joyboy, how you became friends with Featherweight and Rumble, and everything about the Colt Eastwood 2-

Four. Colt Eastwood 4. Don't get those mixed up, four's the worst of them all and two's the best. The only thing good about four is the boss battles.

Right sorry, Colt Eastwood 4. Still, why do you ask? Are you having the same problem right now?

Uh-huh. I remember what Disney movies were, but I can't remember any of the names or anything about the actual movies. But I do remember everything that happened that day. Begging my Mom...No wait, you're mom, for some kind of souvenir, trying to go on every ride there was, the parade, and the best water ride ever-

Splash Mountain!

As I finished taking five pictures of Walt Disney and Mickey in what I could only guess was a dream or a memory, I went over what happened with the Button's memory. I was watching the world through Button's eyes the way he had back then. We were both watching the same memories and it feels like their our own.

That morning with the school picture...It didn't feel like it was a movie or something, it felt like that was me watching a part of my past. No matter what I do, I can't shake the feeling that what happened was my memory. But at the same time, I know it wasn't my memory, it was Button's. Those two thoughts contradicted each other, but my mind couldn't decide.

I guessed that the same thing was happening to Button. He was watching a memory of my own unfold before him. And it was all starting to feel like a past that belonged to him.

It was all like a strange messed up version of The Giver. Where certain people can give memories, but with hypnosis or something making The Receiver think that it's their life.

And something told me that this wasn't going to be a one-time thing.

Button? Do you know what's going on right now? With our memories and all?

I think so. From this one dream-thing alone, I know way more about cameras and Disney World than I should.

Same here. I think if we're gonna get to New York, we gotta work together on this. This won't be the last time something like this will happen.

My memory then picked up the step ladder and started walking towards the path that was on right to get a shot of Cinderella's Castle from an angle.

Okay, so what? Do we go multiplayer mode or something?

Well so far I'm the only one in control of our-err-your body, and you're able to talk to me through my mind. So...How about we try and just figure out everything as we go? Like you be the strategy guide and me the player?

Alright, good idea! I'll try and help you from in here! Just, uh...Promise to look after my hat and my body. I'm gonna need those back when this is all over.

You-

But before I could tell him anything else, memory-me took one last shot. And just as the flash from it blinded us temporarily, everything vanished into pure darkness wants again.

I couldn't hear Button talking to me anymore, and again I could feel myself being a pony instead of my human self. This time however, I could feel a cushioned piece of furniture underneath me.

Suddenly; all the memories of my life, plus a few new memories from Button's life, all came back to me. Not only that, but a new set of sounds started to ring out around me. A few birds chirping, one or two horses running around, and a TV turned onto a football game or some other sport.

And on top of all that, there was something pushing me a little every few seconds. Something that had a voice that went with it. "Hey! Zeke! Come on, we gotta get going!"

"Yeah...Yeah, I know..." I said, very slowly getting up. And beside me I saw all my stuff. The small black saddle bag filled with snacks and random tools. And Button's prized Propeller Beanie.

I stood up on the couch I had chosen to sleep on and stretched a little before walking over to the arm of the couch the hat was resting on. And drowsily, I picked it up with my hooves and inspected it with a tired yet determined look on my face.

"Don't worry Button. We'll get to New York in one piece."

Author's Note

Sorry that it took this long for me to make this chapter. But hopefully I'll be able to keep it going a little faster now! And just to remind everyone before I get any notes about it, the scene with Featherweight and Rumble was all a memory from before the PEV timeline.

Goodbye until next chapter!

Two Players...No Co-op Mode

As we drove in our not-so-brand new truck, I had a lot on my mind at the moment. The nice doctor had given so much to two random fools that I was still counting it all up. First he gave me a free check-up, then let us have some dinner (even though I only got mash potatoes...The best mash potatoes ever!), a place to spend the night, and even then he helped us on the way out.

Once his wife, who had to be one of the nicest tomboys I had ever met, heard about everything that happened, she even started helping out! She started by clearing out the cheese in my saddlebag and added three more apples that were now resting with the original two I had brought with me.

Next, she and the doctor gave us a small jerry can to refill the truck once it ran out of gas. Meaning that we probably had just enough to reach the Florida/Georgia line if we drove straight there without any long detours.

Honestly, for all those two did for us, I felt like a jerk trying to take it! I mean, we could’ve been two scam artists for all they know and they were still fine with all they gave away!

Connor on the other hand -hoof?- no, hand, didn’t have a problem at all accepting all this stuff. He wasn’t like he was expecting it or anything, he was as thankful as I was, but he didn’t just took it all like it was free loot.

That had been twenty minutes ago. After getting a little lost with the backroads, neither of us were paying attention on the way here, we had finally made it to the highway. Sooner or later, we’d have to stop by some kind of rest stop and get a map because the best we could do for directions was ‘Go north.’

As Connor drove, I sat in the passenger seat with the seat belt wrapped awkwardly around me. Since sitting human style was not comfy at all, that left me to sit on my haunches like ponies usually did in the show. So the waist part of the belt was resting along my front legs while the strap was uselessly hanging behind me. It was either that or have it choke me, and I wasn’t in the mood for more punishment.

“Hey, uh, can you get the radio? The silence is killing me.” Connor spoke as he kept his eyes on the road. He looked pretty relaxed at the wheel, but it didn’t take much to know that it was an act.

“Sure.” I couldn’t tell if it was just nerves, anxiety, or whatever, but I didn’t question it as I just pressed the power button, leaving it on whatever station it was on.

“Luckily no one was hurt in the out-of-the-ordinary incident.” a lady’s voice concluded, talking about...Something apparently. “In other news, it seems that more and more individuals are being affected by these unexplainable transformations. As to how many have been effected is yet to be determined, but rumors have it that the number seems to be doubling by the day.

“While no one seems to have any conclusion as to why this is happening, it seems that everyone has their own idea. Congressmen Jason Gardner, currently the only government official to be effected themselves, had this to say:”

After the news lady paused to wait for the quote, Connor quickly reached over and twisted the knob that worked which station it was on. Making the station change to some random bad pop song.

“Wha-Hey!” I glared towards him. “The heck man, I was listening to that!” I shouted, still trying to piece together the bit that I did hear.

“Sorry, I can’t listen to that when I’m driving.” He held up one hand in defense as he kept his head trained at the road. I saw him trying to look at me out from the corner of his eyes, but he eventually gave up and kept focusing on the road.

“Then why’d you tell me to turn the radio on?” I asked, groaning in annoyance as the only thing on the radio I actually wanted to hear was now gone.

“Sorry, I meant the news.” He apologized. “I know that it’s important, but if we leave that on I don’t th-think I’ll look at the road.” He said, accidentally slipping up towards the end.

He was starting to look nervous now. As if the guy that I had been forced to follow around had suddenly took a vacation. His right hand was starting to tremble, he was repeatedly smacking his lips and swallowing nervously, leading to him to quickly wipe his mouth before returning it to the wheel. To which he immediately tried to correct with perfection by putting his hands on ten and two.

“Uh, makes sense, I guess.” I quickly nodded, deciding to calm down myself.

I always worked the photo wall at weddings. And almost every time there were people that didn’t know how to pose, thought they blinked, instinctively put their hands in their pockets, anything that they were worried about, I learned how to spot it.. It was called being camera shy

Connor, however, was driver shy. He was just as nervous as a man in front of a camera, and all the tells were there. He was trying to correct himself on every little thing, he kept his attention overly trained ahead of him instead of turning his head even the littlest bit, and his back was so straight you could’ve thought he had a piece of lumber in his shirt.

Woah...He must be really freaked out about driving. He looks like a sweating robot or something.

Button noticed it too. Whether that was from the memory he saw or if it was that noticeable, I couldn’t tell. It was always hard to tell apart obvious from subtle if you had gotten so used to spotting it generally.

“That’s fine. Besides, I get why you wanna know about...Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you earlier, I went ahead and fixed your iPad while you were still in bed!” Connor told me, smiling a little as some of his nervousness washed away.

“Fixed it?” I repeated. And not a second later, I cast a glance at him suspiciously. “It wasn’t broken before…” I told him slowly, not quite sure whether or not to be angry of anything. I didn’t want to be mad at him for something that he didn’t do.

“What? No, not that.” He shook his head. “I mean I made it better. You didn’t have any internet on it, so I routed it to my parents’ account. Now you have 4G on you iPad.”

“Wait, are you serious?” I turned my head entirely towards him in shock, but knowing that he wasn’t going to look me in the eye, I jumped down to the floor ahead of me and reached for my saddlebags that I had sitting in the corner.

The rest of the stuff was all in the metal toolbox that was installed in the bed of the truck. The jerry can, Connor’s skateboard, and food. I still had the apples that the Doctor’s Wife gave me in the saddlebag, but they also gave Connor whatever dinner leftovers were left and a small bale of hay for me. Something I had to try later, probably.

I carefully pulled out the iPad from my saddlebag and opened the flap of the black case so I could get to the screen. I never had set a password for it, so I unlocked it mindlessly and looked up to the top corner of it where I spotted the internet symbol showing all three bars.

“You weren’t kidding, uh, t-thanks man.” I noted before testing it out further. I started by switching on one of the online games that was only on the iPad. It came out back in August so even though I never spent any money buying anything, I was leveled up well enough.

Woah, what’s that game?

“Clash of Clans. Came out last month.” I answered automatically.

“What?” Connor asked, spending little time glancing over at me.

“Huh?” I blinked at him. Recognizing how he sounded like he was in two different places at once. Or wait…

“Button?” I called out, trying to figure out just where to be looking.

Yeah, that was me.

“So you were talking to me back at the ranch!” I yelled, making Connor flinch slightly. Luckily, the wheel didn’t jerk badly, but I still felt the truck flinch along with him a tad.

“Ah! Dude!” Connor yelled, now very worried.

“Sorry, my bad!” I apologized, all my anger now acting as fear. Normally, I was easy to tick off and had unlimited ammo when it came to sarcasm. But for right now, that ammo was wet gunpowder.

Hey buddy, you got two Caraaaaazy~ Minutes to get to-

“Not. Helping. Button.” I gritted through my teeth, going back and forth from angry to terrified. It was a really weird feeling to tell the truth, but for some reason I went back and forth between the two emotions pretty quick.

Ahehe...Sorry. Anyway, how’s the game work?

“Well, you build up a base, make an army, and send them out after someone else’s base. The game’s always online, so someone could attack you at any point. As long as you destroy half their stuff or take out their town center, you win the war.”

Cool! I wanna play!

“Wait a second, are you actually talking to Button right now?” This time, Connor did turn to look at me. His attention was still on the road, but every few seconds, he looked towards me.

“Uh...Sure, I guess so.” I answered with a shrug. “I don’t know how though.”

Really?! Thank you!

“Huh?”
“What?”

Don’t worry about figuring it out though, I think I have an idea.

“What do you mean, you have an idea?” I asked, glancing up and around in confusion.

“I didn’t say anything.” Connor shook his head, turning back to the road once he figured out the answer to his own question on his own.

“No, not you, I meant Button.” I glanced back up. “Button, what did you say just now?”

I said I think I can take over.

“Take what now?” I gulped, not sure what Button meant by that.

Take over. You said that I could play but you weren’t sure how, right?

“Uh...I think I was talking to-”

So I think I figured it out. You know how I’m spectating, right?

“Y-Yeah, you were telling me that…” I said cautiously, not liking at all where this was going.

Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but whenever I’m spectating, I’m kinda separated from all those games I play around in.

“You mean my memories?” I corrected, raising an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure on whether or not him seeing my memories as ‘games’ was a good thing.

Well...Not like before. I can actually control what I’m doing. So I don’t think those are memories. Still, I’m not messing with those now. So, you ready?

“Uh, I’m not sure if it’s going to wor-”

Aw, come on, it’ll be fine! Besides, my Mom used to let take apart my game systems all the time!

“...”

...

“...”

...What?

“Were you able to put them back together?” I asked, rolling my eyes as he left that question unanswered.

“Wait, put what back together?” Connor asked, hopelessly out of the loop.

Oh. Uh, well...I did say my Mom used to let me take them apart, right?

“Let’s not do this.” I concluded, shaking my head no. There wasn’t a chance I was letting Button do something to me...Er...Us, I guess.

Zeke, don’t worry, I know how to do this. It’s pretty obvious anyway, here, watch.

“No, I meant that I never said that we should try and switch-GAH!” Whatever happened next, I couldn’t recall at all.

All of a sudden, my head began throbbing as if a headcrab had attached to my head as nearly my entire head was crying out in pain. It wasn’t just the back of my head or the front, it felt as if my whole head was about to burst from the inside out.

Not only that, but the pain was nearly too much to take. My eyes were forced shut and I couldn’t help but throw my head in every direction possible as if to try and stop whatever was going on.

I heard someone yelling something at me, maybe my name, but I couldn’t keep any focus on it. It became impossible to focus on anything else. Heck, I couldn’t so much as feel anything by this point. All I knew was that my whole body was jerking and twitching over and over and that I couldn’t tell any of it.

It could’ve been a few seconds or minutes until I managed to open my eyes slightly. The tree line was now more ahead of us then to the right where it was originally, I think Connor was doing something about the wheel, and the time on the radio.

11:54. When I switched on the radio and looked at my iPad, It was eleven thirty-something. Fourteen minutes had passed somehow.

The pain caught up to me once more as my eyes closed and I stopped twitching. Somehow, I had lasted this long being in so much pain. What I didn’t expect was for the pain to end so quickly.

I always heard that pain didn’t last long. That once you bumped your head on the door when you were looking at a picture on the wall, or bit your finger whenever you were eating that potato chip, that pain you felt was only there for that split-second instant, and it was gone. But what happened was something else.

The pain all subsided at once, as if it had never been there before. Though at the same time, I couldn’t hear anything that was going on either. Not Connor or Button Mash asking me any questions nor that pop music that Connor had switched the radio to.

On top of the silence, I couldn’t feel anything familiar anymore. The seat belt along my legs was missing, the iPad I was carefully holding onto was gone, and I couldn’t feel the same chair I was sitting on.

I took this moment to open one eye as carefully as I could, as if whatever happened was just waiting for me to let my guard down or something. When nothing happened, I opened my second eye and looked around.

Around me was something entirely different from before. I wasn’t on the highway, or even the truck for that matter. I was in some small-sized...Theatre.

The theatre had only one red velvet chair, which I found myself sitting in, and it was facing towards a giant flat screen TV that was up against the wall. And looking over my shoulder, was a clearly marked double door. This being the only exit I could find.

“Button…” I called out with a quiet whisper. “...What did you do?”

Sword Art Offline

“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.