Roy went to Sarah' side and kissed her forehead. "Alright kiddo, now I'm gonna put this helmet on you, alright? Okay, there we go. Now, I need you to close your eyes. I'm going to upload your consciousness into the computer."
Sarah grabbed his hand. "I'm scared."
"Don't worry. I'll be there with you."
Leaving his sister's side, Roy went to the control panel, pressed some buttons and the screen lit up, showing the technicolor world he recreated.
"She's asleep now." One of the nurses reported.
Alex, an old friend of Roy's and co-creator of the Dream Machine, went in with the surgery staff behind him. "You know, if this thing works, we'll be on the headlines of every medical, tech, and gaming magazines."
"I know, but I don't want to think about it now. Plug me in."
"Are you sure this is the best way to go through with the operation? I know Sarah will be under similar effects of anesthesia, but there might be some complications."
"The doctors said it themselves, she doesn't have high chances to survive a regular operation either way. If this will be her last moments, I want her to die happy."
"Have you told her about the operation?"
"I didn't want to raise her hopes up. Now hurry up, start the upload."
=====
Going through the uploading process was something out of a movie. The world just being built up around you, bit by bit, object by object. Roy looked down and confirmed he was now in the body of an earth pony. "So Sarah, what do you think? Pretty cool, eh? Sarah?"
He looked around frantically for his younger sister. "Sarah!" Great, first minute and he already lost her.
"WOOHOO!!!"
*CRASH*
In a flash, Roy was on the ground with a pegasus mare standing on top of him.
"THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!! YOU'RE THE BEST BROTHER EVER!!!" And before Roy could say anything, Sarah took the skies once again.
"Crazy kid."
He watched her flying without a care, smashing clouds and doing tricks that Rainbow Dash would be proud of.
"Hey Roy! I see Canterlot over there! Come on!"
"Sarah! Wait! I can't fly like you! SARAH! Guess I'm running for it."
=====
"How's it going Doc?"
"Their vitals are steady. This machine of yours works wonders, its a great alternative to anesthesia."
"I'm sure Roy would be glad to hear that. I'll leave you to your work then."
=====
"Princess Celestia! Princess Luna! I can't believe it!" Sarah was jumping with excitement.
"Oh hello there. Are you new here?" Celestia asked.
"Uh-huh! My brother brought me here -- OH MY GOSH! I left him out there!"
"I'm here!" Roy rushed through the doors, panting. "Why did I... ever put on... virtual exhaustion?"
"Roy!" Sarah cheered gleefully.
"Please, let me catch my... breath before you go... dashing off again..."
"This is your brother?" Luna asked, and Sarah nodded. "I haven't seen your faces before. Are both of you from Equestria?"
"Nope!" Sarah answered.
"In that case," Celestia stood up from her throne and approached the two visitors, "would you like to go for a tour?"
"Would I! Come on, Roy!"
=====
"We have a problem here, Mr. Alex."
"What is it?"
"The heart doesn't seem compatible with the patient."
"What? How? I thought you you said you had a synthetic heart specifically for her! You took samples and everything!"
"The heart they sent us was the wrong one."
"What? You didn't check it beforehand? How can something like this happen?"
"Accountable to human error. The container it came in had her name listed, but the details inside says the heart was for one Ms. Turner. If we use this heart, her body will reject it."
"Okay, okay... how long is it gonna take to get Sarah's new heart?"
"I'm afraid it won't be here till tomorrow, by then, it would be too late."
"You have no idea what profanities I want to say right now... That's it, I'm going in and telling Roy. Try to get the heart in here."
"I told you, it will take until tomorrow and -"
"Do everything to get that heart inside Sarah, or I don't know what Roy's gonna do. She's the only one he has right now, Doc. At least try to keep her alive until tomorrow if you can't do anything about the time."
=====
Recreating the Starswirl wing of the castle had taken hundreds of hours, but it was well worth it. Roy made it as accurate to the show as possible and took some liberties on places where he had no reference to.
"What about this one?" Sarah asked the princesses.
"That is Starswirl's lamp. He enchanted it to light up almost as brightly as the sun."
While browsing through the museum, Roy was suddenly pulled into a dark corner by an unknown unicorn. "Hey, what gives? Alex?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"What's going on? Who's working the machine?"
"I am, I bypassed the neural nullification, but that doesn't matter, we got a really big problem here. The heart they were supposed to transplant? Yeah, they got sent the wrong one. Her body's going to reject it."
"What? How did that happen?"
"Yeah, that's what I said. Someone accidentally switched the heart with someone else's. What are we gonna do?"
Without hesitation, Roy said, "Give her my heart."
"What are you, crazy?"
"We're from the same parents, we have almost the same genetic code, right? So I don't see why her body would reject my heart."
"But then you'll die!"
"I don't really care, so long as she lives."
"W-why can't I just stay here?"
"Sarah!" Roy and Alex turned to see a teary-eyed Sarah.
"It doesn't work that way, Sarah." Roy explained. "This is only a virtual reality, you're not actually inside the machine."
"But can't you make it so?"
"Well... we could permanently upload your consciousness, but its complicated and there's no telling how long that would take." Roy moved to hug his sister. "Don't worry, I already lived a good portion of my life. You still have much to see."
"But you already gave me all that I ever wanted. I'm ready to let things go."
"Don't say things like that! That's not how you should think about life."
"Then why do you want to... die for me?"
"Cause you're all that matters to me. I... You'll understand when you're older."
Luna and Celestia went over to Alex, who had left to give the two siblings their space. "We may have a solution." Luna said.
"That's cute, but you're just programs in a disk. How could you possibly provide a solution?"
The two sisters' horns lit up and a sphere resembling a crystal ball appeared before him. Inside were lines of data interweaving to form some type of code.
"No... how is this even possible? Programs can't do this..."
He looked up and saw the two sisters nodding at him.
"Its worth a try I guess."
"You're not going to tell them?"
Alex looked at Roy and Sarah, still in each other's embraces. "I don't want to raise their hopes up."
Author's Note
This is a short, Spur of the Moment thing that popped into my head from time to time that actually got written down before I lost all the details. Not much research is made for this, so I'll be expecting a lot of people to call me out for the medical parts I just jammed in there, but I hope you guys enjoy the story.
I'll leave the ending open to interpretation.
When I was a kid, I always wanted to live in anime and cartoon worlds, and the idea of a machine that placed me in the middle of it all was something I really wanted to happen. For some reason, that idea resurfaced in the form of a dream I had while on a bus, leading to the creation of this quick fic right here.
