Mike was sitting in the cabin of the late Cisco's private jet, which was flying on auto-pilot to Colombia, as far away from Liberty City as possible. He was listening on the plane's radio, trying to ease his mind as he reflected on the things he had to do to finally escape from the hellhole that is Liberty City. "Worst Place in America", indeed. Liberty, which he escaped from only a few hours ago, was a city of power-hungry gangs, crooked cops, and corrupt politicians. On its streets, crimes such as murder, carjacking, and armed robbery were as common as jogs through Belleville Park. Mike was still shaking and bruised from his lengthy battle against the Yardies, one of the many street gangs that roamed the city's streets, and his subsequent escape from the LCPD and National Guard in a tank.
He was listening to WLLC The Zone 34.9 FM, which was playing "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" by AC/DC. After a couple of minutes, the song was over, and the voice of the radio deejay was audible.
"Your'e listening to The Zone 34.9, home of only the best music and news in Liberty City!" said the radio deejay. "And that was AC/DC you were just listening to. Best damn rock band in the whole world, if you ask me! Their music can go with any movie, and make it a fifth more badass than it already was! Anyway, time for some news with Eric Chin! Eric, over to you!"
"Thanks, Mr. Moffat!" said Eric Chin on the radio. "Well, I was going to report on the recent string of criminal activities involving the deaths of several members of the Forelli Family, the Colombian Cartel, and the Yardies by an unknown assailant, but those greedy pricks--I mean reporters at the Liberty Tree already sent people over to investigate it. So instead, I thought I'd drop over by Harwood on Portland Island. I'm here with Mr. Hiroshi Zaibatsu of the Zaibatsu Corporation, who has unveiled their vaccine for the recent epidemic that plagued our streets. Also with me is Dr. Hollow Kost, who has taken the liberty to explain what Mr. Zaibatsu's future plans are for our city."
"Well, Mr. Chin, My friend Hiroshi--as you must know by now--is a very wealthy and powerful man with many dreams and ambitions. Most of which are shared by me and my associates." said Hollow Kost. "Together, me and Hiroshi plan for our new organization, the Zaibatsu Corporation, to assist the good citizens of Liberty in whatever way we possibly can. First, we release ever more medical products, and hopefully move on to...other businesses here in the city."
"Have you employed anyone yet?" asked Eric, curiously.
"Why yes, actually." said Hollow Kost. "We've enlisted several locals to distribute, manufacture, test, and produce our products throughout the city. In fact, here are some of them right now."
"Is there any reason why they're all carrying weapons--?" Eric began.
There was a faint sound of pistols cocking on the radio.
"Weapons? I don't see any weapons!" said Eric, nervously and quickly. "And I sure as hell don't see three people about to beat the crap out of me with baseball bats...I mean could you imagine...Oh my go--aaaaauuuugggghhhh!"
They were sounds of a fight and raised voices on the radio followed by static and then silence.
"Well, it looks like Mr. Chin's signal's down." said Moffat's voice on the radio. "Well, until he can get it back up, here's 'In a Big Country' by Big Country..."
The song played on the radio, then suddenly became distorted and faded into static. Mike went over to check out the radio.
"What's goin' on here?" he mumbled. "Can't be out of range yet."
Suddenly, the whole plane started to shake.
"The hell's going on?!" he shouted.
The plane started to rock left and right.
"Oh, damn it! I'm gonna be sick!" Mike groaned.
He looked out the cabin window, but was unable to see land or sea below. There were strange glowing clouds above and below the plane.
"What's up with this weather?" said Mike. "Something ain't right about it."
Suddenly, he heard a strange humming noise from outside and ran to the cockpit. The plane was now flying into an unearthly pillar of light.
"Crap, crap, crap!" Mike shouted frantically, fighting the auto-pilot for the controls.
But before he could turn the auto-pilot off, the plane went straight on through the pillar of light. Suddenly, all electronics on the plane stopped flickered on and off before being permanently inactive. The airplane was beginning to spiral out-of-control. Mike knew now that the only hope he had of surviving a crash was parachuting out. But he looked all over Cisco's private jet, but couldn't find chutes anywhere. As if things weren't bad enough...
"Ow!" Mike suddenly exclaimed.
He was feeling a sharp pain in his ears, arms, and legs. There was also a numbness in his mouth, nose, and tailbone.
"Oh my Gooooooooooodddd!" Mike hollered, painfully.
He could feel the plane crashing into what seemed like a body of water. At the same moment, he felt light-headed and shaky. He could hear the cockpit shattering and water rushing into the airplane. It was when the cockpit door was broken in half by the oncoming tide that Mike finally passed out from the pain and disorientation.
"Hey! Buddy!" said a man's voice. "Wake up! You okay or what?"
"Screw you, I don't wanna get up yet." Mike muttered absent-mindedly as he lied down. He felt an itch on his nose.
He lifted his arm to scratch it, but instead of a human hand, he felt something flat and hard being pressed against his face, which no long seemed very humanoid.
"Okay, what the hell..." Mike muttered, opening his eyes.
He was looking straight into the eyes...of a pony. A pony wearing suspenders and a backwards baseball cap.
"Hey, little guy." Mike said, as gently as possible. "What the heck are ya wearing?"
"It's my uniform, dude!" the pony told him.
Mike's eyes, which seemed bigger than usual, were wide with surprise.
"Did you...did you...did you just...talk?!" Mike whispered in shock.
"Sure I can talk, buddy." said the pony.
"But you're a horse!" said Mike. "Horses don't talk...or wear human clothes!"
"What's a human?" asked the pony.
"I'm a human!"
"Really, cuz you look more like a pony to me."
"What?"
"Sure, dude." said the pony. "Check it out."
The pony went to the other side of the boat he and Mike were apparently on, and came back with a mirror. Mike looked into the mirror, and instead of seeing a human, he saw another pony. One with a yellowish-white coat, greasy black mane, brown eyes, and shabby outfit identical to the one that Mike wore before he blacked out.
"What the hell is this?!" he exclaimed, horrified. "What the goddamn hell happened to me?!"
"Dude, relax!" said the pony. "You were floating around in the water and I got you onto my boat before you'd freeze out here."
"Tell me, are there any more...talking horses that I need to know about?" Mike asked, completely convinced that he'd gone insane.
"Well, we're ponies. But yeah." said the pony. "We're in Equestria, which is nothing but talking ponies."
Mike paused.
"Equestria?" asked Mike. "What the hell kinda stupid name is that?"
"You're a really funny guy." said the pony. "The name's King. Fisher King."
"I'm Mike."
"Well, how'd you like to come into the galley for some apple cider, Mike?" offered Fisher. "Best darn stuff in all Equestria."
"No thanks. I had some vodka on the plane." Mike said, before adding under his breath: "Maybe I had too much of it."
"What plane?" asked Fisher.
Mike got up, and stood himself against the port side of the boat, looking around the water.
"What the--" he muttered, before facing Fisher. "Where the hell did the plane go? I was right inside it when it crashed!"
"Dude, I didn't see anything in the water with you but some pieces of broken wreckage." said Fisher.
"Then the rest of the plane must've sunk under." said Mike. "I wanna know why the hell I'm suddenly a...pony and find out how I can be human again. Where's the nearest place we can get ashore?"
"Las Pegasus." said Fisher. "Nice place to go, if you don't mind getting in trouble with both sides of the law."
"Crap." Mike muttered.
It seemed like he escaped one hellhole city to go to another one. This time, he didn't even have any appendages.
"...And every street you walked on, someone was getting mugged in broad daylight!" Mike recounted to Fisher King, walking down a street in Las Pegasus. "And the police never even do anything about it, because the city's run by a bunch of corrupt politicians and the gangs pay them to look the other way."
"Wow, Liberty City sounds like a terrible place." said Fisher. "I can understand why ya left, buddy."
"Yeah." said Mike. "Wish I didn't have to piss half the city off to finally get outta there. Not that I feel bad, but I had to get involved in a whole bunch of stuff before I finally left. Stealing cars, blowing up buildings, shooting people...especially ones that shot back. Not to mention, a lot of decent folks got hurt or killed. All because someone that I thought was my friend was a backstabbing S.O.B. that set me up. At least I know that Vinnie's rotting in Hell now, and I'm not. Or maybe I am too, but I got it slightly better than him."
"Sounds like you live an exciting life." said Fisher. "Let's hope you can go legit."
"I hope so, too." said Mike. "But I think I ought to to know about this...world, and how a bunch of talking ponies are able to run a city like this."
Then Fisher King spent the next half hour explaining to Mike about Equestria, about the different species that inhabited it, and the princesses that ruled it.
"So, wait...wait." Mike said, trying not to laugh. "You mean to tell me that there's magic in this world...and that unicorns with wings control the Sun and Moon."
"Yep." said Fisher. "It's been that way for over a thousand years or something like that."
"Don't you realize how dumb that sounds, though?" asked Mike, chuckling. "I ain't some Science major, but even I realize that it sounds like a load of crap."
"Well, there was another one that controlled the Moon." Fisher told him. "She's kinda...locked up in it though. Least that's what I heard."
"Whatever." said Mike. "So, do you know any way that I can get to this so-called Princess of yours?"
"She's in Canterlot, in the middle of Equestria." said Fisher. "It's a long ways from here, dude."
"So how the sam hell do we get there?" asked Mike.
"We could take my fishing boat up to Vanhoover." said Fisher. "That's my hometown. But if I don't ship the fish I caught soon, I could lose my job."
"Then get your stupid fish sold already." said Mike. "I'm gonna take a look around town."
"Okay, buddy." said Fisher King.
Fisher went back to the marina, while Mike continued down the street. The particular street he was on was grimy and dark, with very few lights coming from the buildings. Occasionally, traffic passed by in the form of stage-coaches and wagons transporting ponyfolk while still being pulled by other ponyfolk. Some ponyfolk passed by him in shabby outfits that weren't much better than the one he wore back in Liberty. Some of them took suspicious glances at him before continuing on. He turned a corner into a back-alley to get to the next district. Suddenly...
There was a stampede of hooves behind him, and a group of ponies in ragged outfits galloping after him, some of them even wielding lead pipes and baseball bats.
"And here we go with this crap again..." Mike muttered.
He bolted down the alley, the gang in hot pursuit of him. He raced down the alley, taking turns here and there to try and shake them off, until he reached a more brightly-lit street. He was getting tired from all the running, especially since he wasn't used to having hooves. He had to find a way to escape the vagabonds.
He wound up colliding with a middle-aged stallion with a briefcase, incapacitating him. Mike grabbed the briefcase, and used it as a shield to try warding off the attackers. Suddenly, a stagecoach stopped by, with a yellow-and-black color scheme, indicating it was a taxi.
"C'mon!" shouted the driver. "Hop in!"
Not wanting to question what was happening, Mike jumped into the cab, with the case still in his hooves.
"Step on it!" he shouted.
The cabbie bolted on, carrying the taxi behind him at a fast speed. In a few moments, the gang and the old stallion were out of sight.
"Looks like I just got you outta there just in time." said the cabbie, once they stopped.
"How'd you know I was here?" asked Mike.
"I was just passing by when I saw those guys chasing you, so I thought I'd get you a free ride out of their territory."
"Who were they?"
"They call themselves the Pythons." said the cabbie. "They've been causing problems here for decades."
"Pythons?" repeated Mike.
"Yeah." said the cabbie. "They really don't mess around. So anyways, any place you want me to drop you off?"
"Um..." Mike hesitated. "Actually, I was thinking. Why don't you take me to your company?"
"What for?"
"I was hoping to get a job." said Mike. "And I used to drive a taxi back in my hometown. I'm a damn good driver, too."
"You sure?" asked the cabbie. "Las Pegasus can be a dangerous place."
"So was Liberty." said Mike. "Didn't stop me from surviving."
"Okay, well..." said the cabbie. "My shift's gonna be over soon anyway. I guess I could bring you in for a few when I bring the taxi back."
"So you're sure you wanna be a cab driver?" asked Gold Bar, the head of Gold Bar Taxi Co..
"Sure." said Mike.
"Do you have any experience as a driver?"
Mike reflected on all the driving he did when he was in Liberty City.
"Definitely." said Mike.
"Do you have any prior work experience?"
Mike thought again about all the jobs he did before he left Liberty. Not wanting to bring up the jobs he did for the various criminals and gangs he worked with, he decided to list the odd jobs he did in his spare-time.
"Let's see, I've been a taxi driver, a firefighter, a street racer, an ambulance driver, and a vigi...I mean, 'lawman'."
"Well, it sounds like you've got quite a few professions under your belt." said Gold Bar. "And since you used to be in law enforcement, I'm gonna assume you don't have a criminal status?"
"Sorta." said Mike, stammering for an alibi. "I mean, I used to...be an...uhhhh...undercover cop."
"Really." said Gold Bar. "What, were you afraid of your cover being blown?"
"Nah, I was sick of the other cops attacking me, thinking I was some friggin' low-life gangster."
"And any reason why you kept changing those other jobs?"
"I didn't really stop." said Mike. "I just went back and forth between them because of how profitable they were. Since I'm in a new town and trying to forget about my old one, I figured that the first thing I'd do to get started with a new life is doing something not only legit, but something I don't need special training for. Being a cabbie will be a walk in the park compared to what I normally did back in my old town."
"Well, if you're sure you're up to this..." said Gold Bar.
"I'm sure I am." said Mike. "And you don't need to worry about me. I can handle myself if any more punks try attacking me. I'll make 'em wish they were never born."
"Ha! I like your style, Mike." said Gold Bar. "We could use more ponies like you around here. Okay, you can start next Monday."
"Thanks." grinned Mike.
"Are you gonna need anything else?" asked Gold Bar.
"Yeah." said Mike. "How's about a ride down to the docks?"
"No prob." said Gold Bar. "I'll dispatch one for ya right aways."
Mike left Gold Bar's office, carrying the strange briefcase with him. He found himself wondering what was in it. He tried to open the case, but it was locked and needed a key that he didn't have on him. He looked closely at the back of the case, and saw the initials "S.E." engraved on it.
"Maybe I should hold onto this." Mike muttered under his breath. "Least 'til I know what the hell's in it."