Ben opened the door to his flat. He had stayed strong for long enough during his journey home, returning from his job for the last time. It's the same old, "It's nothing personal, we've just made more losses this quarter and your job is well... Frankly, expendable." It didn't matter how he had lost his job, the important thing was that he had lost it. Working a 9-5 pencil pusher gig was not the most exciting thing to do, but it was JUST enough to keep him alive and in this home.
He wouldn't be able to find another job and get back on his proverbial feet in time to keep up payments of this place. He had already been forced to get behind on payments just to have it furnished with the usual cheap Swedish flat-pack affair. He didn't have any friends to stay with, a partner, and even the last-ditch plan of moving back with the parents wouldn't fly as they were both in a nursing home. He gave up on being strong, and quietly sobbed as he flicked his small television over to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Yes, he was a brony. This story would not have been if he was not, would it? Details of how he got into it aren't specific, he caught up with an old school friend once and they sent him it. He sighed, and took in the color, the happiness, the utopian ways of Equestria... Or at least, utopian ways in comparison to this rock of a planet. And while he wouldn't particularly consider himself as obsessive as others, right now, he was in a weak enough state to stare at the screen, wishing he was there, instead.
As the credits theme plays, and the names of the creators flash by on screen, a few more quiet tears seep from Ben's ducts as he turns the TV off, gets up, and decides to call it a night. He couldn't afford to eat tonight, he didn't feel all that hungry, and it would all be good training for his body when he was on the streets, eating whenever he could infrequently acquire the means.
He pulled the sofa out into a bed using the mechanism, this being a smaller flat than previously mentioned. After turning the lights off, he lays down, and after some hesitation, Ben falls asleep, dropping the 6-word bomb.
"I know this sounds crazy, but... I wish I lived in Equestria..."
Ben was awoken by the foreign aroma of flowers he hadn't smelt in any florist's before. His sofa didn't seem to be there, instead he felt hard, grassy grounds beneath him. He slits his eyes open to find himself surrounded in a fusion of a jungle and a forest. It's dark, but he can still see what seems to be the faint blue glow of a plant that didn't look so friendly in front of him.
This dream hadn't taken him to... The Everfree Forest, had it? It seems a little different to the show, but it looked nice enough. He slowly got up and took in more of his surroundings using his bipedal height. Yep, this seemed just like the Everfree.
Ben creeped around, enjoying his "dream" of the wish of being in Equestria granted. He avoided the patches of blue plants around, remembering that first episode the Zebra was in. He guessed it would also be a good idea to seek out civilization in the case of those larger creatures still being around also. The ponies might be able to charm an Ursa or a Manticore, but a single human may not be so lucky.
His eyes shifted as he kept alert of his surroundings. He wouldn't want this dream to turn awry due to bumping into anything. Unfortunately, he was spending too much time looking where he was going to check his feet and notice the twig he was about to trip over.
With a thud, Ben's face connects with the floor. The soil had enough grass to cushion his fall enough so that it was nothing more than a shock, but after recovering back to a stand, it was evident someone had heard his misfortune. Ben is taken by shock once more as he hears a gruff voice call out, which seemed to be addressing him.
"Who's there?!"
Whatever called him out is sentient. Could it be a pony? Ben calls out in reply, considering his current situation, hoping it was a species not his own so it wouldn't sound crazy.
"I'm Ben... I'm a human, and I don't know how I got here, I was just-"
"Ssshhh, it's okay..." The voice was now clearly behind Ben, as he twists himself around to find himself in audience of 3 stallions. Their eyes were large, their heads relatively disproportionate to their bodies, all 3 had darker shades of pastel colors... They seemed just like the ponies he knew.
"Oh, hello there, heheh..." Ben wondered how they would react seeing as he may be their first human. This world never showed any, did it? They all looked happy enough to see him, but not in the way that you'd want to hug.
The one in the middle, the dark pastel-blue pegasus, started, stepping forward a little closer. "If you're lost, why don't you come with us? We can help you out."
Ben takes a closer look. There is a grey pony, with a brown mane on the left looking cheerful, the dark blue pegasus that just greeted him in the middle, with a blonde mane, and a cautious-looking brown unicorn on the right, with a pink mane. Huh, I suppose you'd look kind of pissed constantly if fate had dealt you such a bad color scheme. While they all looked different in color and race, they shared the same green eye color, had the same average, stocky build, and all had the same mane style, long enough to flow past and entirely conceal their cutie marks, meaning they still probably had some kind of relation.
Ben isn't sure of what to say, and the look the unicorn was giving him wasn't too assuring. In the end, he'll just wake up though, so it doesn't matter, right?
"...Sure. Thanks."
The pegasus smiled, and offered his hoof to Ben. "Pleasure to be of service."
As Ben takes the blue hoof to shake it, the pegasus turns to his unicorn friend and nods. "Candy Mane, greet the human." The unicorn, now identified, sighs and offers his hoof to Ben also. Ben has one hoof in each hand, shaking both. Their hooves, contrary to Ben's old group's beliefs, did not feel of marshmallow. They were furry yet hard, just like any pony's hoof on Earth. The pegasus then looks at the earth pony, and nods while smiling wickedly.
"Guy Snatcher, greet the human."
The earth pony smiles back. "With pleasure."
Ben suddenly looks a little scared, and tries to pull away, but feels a light tingle on both of his hands, looking down he notices Candy is stopping him from escaping with a red aura of magic. Before he can respond or take in anything else the grey hoof of Guy Snatcher touches down on his jaw bone in a heavy swipe.
Ben is sent to the ground with a far stronger thud this time, ponies being stronger than they look. Before his body shuts down entirely and his senses fade to black, he feels the numb sensation of being dragged along at the feet by the still unnamed pegasus and Candy Mane.
"That's another one, boys... Good job."
Ben is awoken by the cold floor of the room around him. Once again, he opens his eyes to take a look around. It looks cold, clinical, and extremely bright, like a laboratory from the movies. A constant hum was in the background, presumably from the lights, making sure no shadows were cast from which to hide.
"I was wondering when you would wake up."
A deadpan mare's voice loomed over Ben, reminding him he should try to escape. He begins to scramble to his feet when he looks up to see Candy Mane, staring at him as silently as before, a faint glow from his horn as a deterrent. The pegasus spoke from the side, with the same gruff voice.
"You'd best stay down till this mare here pays us for you."
Ben complies, and lowers himself back to the ground, facing the mare and the pegasus. Lord knows what that magic could do.
The mare is slightly shorter than the trio that had brought him here, and was a perfectly white unicorn. She wore small half-cut glasses, with a matching silver mane to make her look like the typical secretary. The scowl and tone of voice even fit it.
"Well, you've finally proven to me the human is alive, so I'll give you the agreed 150 bits, Biped Scouter. And might I add he seems a fine specimen, nowhere near as bloated as many as the humans we have taken in the past."
Bloated? Other humans? Aw, hell. At least Ben knew all of the names of the three who brought him here, now. As he watched the mare pass the bag of money into Biped's hooves, Biped grew the biggest shit-eating grin he had ever seen. Probably because ponies had the bigger head thing.
The three stallions looked at each other, and started to walk out of the room, flicking their manes off of their flanks to reveal their cutie marks. Biped and Snatcher both had hooves grabbing what seems to be a stick figure doodle. Candy Mane had a stick of bubblegum for a cutie mark. Maybe he was only in it for the pay. Biped's voice was heard one more time before the sliding doors opened and quickly closed as they trotted out.
"If you didn't hit it so hard we wouldn't have had to sit there for a few hours to wait for him to prove life, Guy."
"You know I panic when they try to run, even if Candy has my ass."
Candy says nothing as the grey doors woosh shut again, and Ben is left with this new mare.
"Okay. Get up, human."
Ben complies once more. Another unicorn means he didn't want to test the waters.
"Follow me. And don't try anything, all of the unicorns are trained to stop any funny business."
Ben begins to walk towards the mare. She turns, and starts trotting through another series of sliding doors and mazes of corridors, Ben being kept in front of her. There were no features in any corridors, all being the same as the room he started in. In Ben's quick theory, this was to discourage escapes due to no sense of direction.
"Now, it's late, so I'll keep this explanation as brief as I can, human. We own you. You will serve us and any clients that we may have. You will eat here. Sleep here. Excrete here. And if we can help it, die here. If you work well, you can stay, and live. If you don't, there is another facility that will be happy to deal with you."
Ben gulped. He wouldn't ask about that right now. It's best to just take it all in so no corrective measures need to be taken.
"We would send you to work as soon as you were through here. You're lucky he hit you too hard, at this hour nopony needs a human. Well, hardly anypony..."
One more set of sliding doors greets Ben and the mare with two tall, grey unicorn stallions, wearing golden armor on their bodies and heads, standing straight, in front of a final pair of specially-reinforced sliding doors.
"And here's where you will stay. We keep a lot of humans in here, so you'll have company. These guards are from our leader Celestia's own regiment, you won't get anything past them."
With a nod of the mare, the two guard's horns gave a shine of blue light, and Ben found his pockets being emptied right in front of him. A few breathmints, some flat keys, and a dead mobile phone. They floated off to the secretary, and her own yellow aura replaced the blue around the items.
"These won't be of any use to you here, and we like to keep and sell these as human artifacts."
Another nod, and Ben feels himself being undressed. His shirt, his trousers, his shoes, his socks, nothing but his underwear was left on his person.
"You won't be needing those, either. But we understand you primitive sentients don't have any cover for your... Rutting organs. You breed when we say you can."
The doors whirr open as the guards stay alert for any humans attempting to make a run for it. On the other side, a darker room is shown, with what seemed to be thousands of pairs of eyes staring back at him. This time, human eyes. Many of them looking sorry for him, others giving quick glares at the three unicorns at the door. Some others not caring and looking in different directions. A shivering tingle is felt up Ben's back as he is pushed into the room against his will by the guards.
Ben can hear the doors whirring shut behind him, and the mare trotting off.
"Your service to this world will begin tomorrow. Welcome to Equestria." the voice trails off as the doors thud shut behind it.
Ben turns to look among the people. He would be embarrassed as to his almost-naked self right now, but everyone else was in the same situation. He could imagine a lot of them being larger than they currently are, but it was evident the feeding policies here were close to starvation.
He didn't receive many responses other than a few calls of "Fresh meat!", but soon gets ushered over by a shorter man to the side. "Over here."
Ben didn't have anything to lose, so wandered over, and sat down next to him. He was vertically challenged, and looked a little older for a brony, maybe in his mid 30's? He didn't look as typical as the 30-year-old nerd you'd hear about, though. Anyone in this situation wouldn't, his body looked as if it had been starved and somewhat beaten for some months.
"Now listen here, kid."
"Ben."
"Listen here, Ben. Name's Johnny. Been here for long enough, and you look like a good guy to help out. Not the fat sweaty ones with questionable lower body wear we usually get."
Ben remains silent. Most of them weren't all that fat anymore. Johnny uses some body language and keeps himself to the point as much as he can.
"You wished for Equestria after being a brony, right?"
"Y-yes..."
"Don't worry about that, we're all here for the same reason. But you're no longer WATCHING My Little Pony: You're IN My Little Pony."
Ben nods.
"We don't know how wishing to live in Equestria ended us up here, but it did. And the ponies aren't so welcoming to new members of other species. They've captured us, brought us to this place, and as you may have heard from them, used as slaves."
"Slavery... Who'd have thought that a society as seemingly harmonious as ponies would-"
Johnny pokes Ben. "The show was clearly not showing the whole picture. For all we know they are just as nice to EACH OTHER as they are in the show, but we aren't ponies."
Ben nods in obvious agreement.
"You WILL be treated second class, at best. That's the most important thing to remember. We're just better-working livestock to them."
The blinding lights were finally being adjusted to, when all of a sudden they shut off entirely. Since the room had nothing but the large metallic security door otherwise, the room became pitch black. The quiet banter and talking among the humans in the giant hall immediately fell silent moments after.
Ben whispers to his new guide. "What's going on?"
He gets quickly nudged and Johnny quickly whispers back "It's curfew. Lights off means nobody can make a SOUND. Discipline is carried out on those who do. Get some sleep, you'll learn enough tomorrow."
And that was that. Ben couldn't see a thing, so felt his way to an unoccupied space on the cold floor. Some time later, he joined the other primate cattle in a harsh state of sub-consciousness.
