Chapter 2: The Unpleasantness

It turned out that their first proper look at the new dystopian hellscape in which they now found themselves was a rather mundane office.* The only thing that wasn’t mundane about the office was the gray wolf sitting in the office chair, hunched over some paperwork on his desk.

At the sound of the door—or maybe it was the sound of hooves clacking on the industrial tile floor—he spun his chair around.

Before he had even turned, both KitKat and Amethyst Star had their weapons drawn. Neither of them cared for wolves, although unlike some little defenseless filly in the woods, they were both perfectly capable of dispatching one and had full confidence in their ability to do so.

As the chair turned and he was revealed to them, it was obvious he wasn’t a threat. His fur was grey with age, not just as a result of species. He seemed too small for his suit, as if he’d shrunk and it hadn’t.

He’d also miscalculated the amount of angular momentum he should have imparted into his office chair; he swung fully around and both of them had their weapons sheathed before he came around again.

Once he was finally facing them again, he squinted and then frowned as he got his first real look at them. Perhaps it was in surprise that they were equine. Perhaps it was the fact that one of them looked like she’d just walked out of the pages of a high fantasy novel, while the other more resembled a nude Lara Croft, albeit with more guns, more fur, and a unicorn horn jutting out of her forehead.

Or maybe his eyesight wasn’t that great, and he didn’t really notice any of those things. “Right,” he said, steepling his paws. “You might be wondering why I summoned you here, my dear furries. We have a very important mission for you two.”

At the word ‘mission’ KitKat’s ears perked up. She was currently between gigs** and could stand to earn a few bits, especially since her quarterly horse tax bill was due.***

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The wolf continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it—”

KitKat raised a hand. “Do I have to sign an NDA?”

“My dear.” The grey wolf slid open a desk drawer and pulled out a manila folder. “You already have.”

“Goddammit.”

The wolf cleared his throat and started again. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to retrieve this Sacred Heart of Turing, stolen from us by the cyber-dragon, Code Slyther.”

“I only know half those words,” KitKat said. “What’s a ‘sacred?’ And—”

“We accept,” Amethyst said.

He pawed the folder across to Amethyst, since she’d been the one who accepted. She ignored that he was leering at KitKat’s big bracers, which had formerly been hock guards (she’d paid a craftsmare extra for the toolwork, and that fine toolwork had come through both their shift in shape and in purpose).

The first thing Amethyst noted on the folder was that the tab simply said “The Silicone Heist,” bringing to mind the two jellyfish-like silicone filled bags she’d recently ruthlessly dispatched.

When she opened the folder the cover page said “This mission is brought to you by Bing AI.”****

Alarm bells should have been ringing, but neither Amethyst nor KitKat knew what Bing was. Or AI. Or manila.

“Hmm, let’s see here. Go to the Binary Bazaar and get the Mystical Malware Musket, then travel to the Forest of Forgotten Files; after we’ve hacked our way through there we’ll find the Labyrinth of Logic Gates, and finally the lair of CodeSlyther. Seems simple enough.” She snapped the file back shut.

•••

“Yeah, even after your ten-second summary of the ~~plot~~ mission, I still only know half those words,” KitKat lamented as the two of them walked out of the office and in the general direction of the streets of the city which would hopefully lead them to the binary bazaar.

Amethyst shrugged. “I’m not fully cognizant of all the words and their nuance, either. There is one thing that I know from experience, though: you get portalized, you gotta play by the rules of the ‘verse. Well, generally anyway, there tends to be some latitude for creativity and whatnot. I figure that the portal guns summoned us here for a reason.”

“Plot convenience?”

“Or an author totally out of ideas and so uncreative or horny that he settled on anthro just to give me gigantic anime boobs, pubic fluff and dimples of Venus. Oh, and a general disdain for clothing.” Both KitKat and Sparkler turned towards the fourth wall for a moment. “Look, you’ll do fine. We need to get to the marketplace and I can pick up the magical musket, and then we’ll go from there.”

“We need to find it first.”

“That’s why pull-down maps equipped in the quick menu are so great.” Sparkler made a motion with her horn, and a map just appeared in front of them. “We’re here, and it’s across town. Easy.”

“I don’t trust things when they’re too easy.”

“Fair enough.” She pushed open the front door of the building, which—like most secret government buildings (as this one clearly was) managed to be both indubitably institutional and yet at the same time so painfully plain that it would be nearly impossible to describe it to anyone.

As the duo of anthropomorphized ponies stepped into the streets, it was obvious on one hoof—or hand, now (or I suppose possibly still a hoof because they still each had two of those)—that they were not out of place in this world, since everycreature was an anthro.

On the other hand (or hoof), they were very much out of place because KitKat was dressed in steel plate armor with a tabarzin strapped across her back and Amethyst Star was holding a manila folder and also stark naked.

The duo got their fair share of stares even before they did anything other than look around at the ~~hellscape~~ bustling town that surrounded the building. Things didn’t improve significantly when they actually walked into the bustling crowd of NPCs.*****

Amethyst’s eyes roved the crowd, analyzing them all with machine-like precision. Like that scene in the first Terminator movie when he first arrives and realizes that in order to blend in, he needs clothes.

KitKat had never tried to blend in on an alien world—when she’d been at the Kum & Go, she’d still been a little horse.

The unicorn locked on a woman about her size, and her hand went for her gun. “I require your clothes,” she said simply as the gun came up.

Author's Note

*Technically, second, since there was the room they arrived in.
**She was wandering the woods on her free time when she found the portal gun
***As a self-employed pony, KitKat has to pay her estimated horse taxes quarterly
****This is true, and it is unfortunately the most coherent part of the narrative
*****Non Pony Citizens (as far as they know at this point in the story they’re the only ponies)