Chapters 1 Lighting up the machine
It was 8:00 a.m. in Ponyville and all seemed peaceful. The shopkeepers were opening their shops, the fillies were going to school and Derpy was was gliding clumsily towards Twilight's house.
"There is your package, miss Sparkle, have a nice day."
"You too, Derpy." Twilight replied.
She called Spike to help her transport the package into the house because it seemed quite heavy, but he didn't answer. She entered her bedroom and found him sleeping... for some reason.
"Wake up, Spike, I need your help carrying this package inside."
Spike yawned: "Can’t you do it yourself?"
"No, and you will need to wake up anyway, so get up and help me."
However Spike answered with a groan and still didn't get up. Twilight levitated him out of the bed and placed him on the floor, then she said: "Are you still comfortable? Now go to work!".
An hour later, Spike had transported the package into the house and had breakfast. Twilight Sparkle slowly opened the box with a paper knife: She started to cut off the tape from the left to the right. When she was finished she stashed the still intact remains of the package for later use.
The completely opened box revealed a grey block with a screen on it, a black "tower" with lots of sockets, and some kind of booklet, whose cover stated "Security- and assembly manual". The Personal Computer she had ordered the week before had arrived !
"Wow, quite a bit smaller than the computer in the basement. I wonder if it has the same functions as the old one?" She pondered before she started to assemble it.
She ordered Spike to create room for the PC on her table, and after an hour everything was ready. She read the instructions for a last time, then she powered up the computer.
The screen flashed green and words appeared on it: "Please wait, configuring boot up data. This operation won't be needed after the first start."
A small white and red bar showed the progress the machine was making.
Half an hour later Pinkie Pie arrived near Twilight's house, looking for her. She knocked on the door only for it to be opened by Spike.
Pinkie asked : "Hi Spike, where is Twilight?"
"She is trying to find out how the new computer works..."
"Oooh, can I come in?"
"Of course yes!"
Pinkie Pie entered, and saw Twilight Sparkle looking at a blue screen with a red text on it.
She walked up to her and asked "Hi Twilight! What are you doing?"
"Oh, hi Pinkie. I'm starting up my new computer. I want to tests its features, but it seems that it will take a long time, so I might start re-cataloging..."
"Or you could come play with me!"
"Ah...ahem... no, I can't, I need to re-catalogue the library..."
"Ah, well, ok, see you later!" Pinkie replied before bouncing out of the library.
An hour later, the library was reorganized and the computer was tested. Twilight asked Spike about her tasks for the day.
Spike replied that the other task were helping with the assembly of a new part of the town library.
The Human perspective:
Felix Mazzoni woke up at the 6:00 a.m., the sound of the alarm clock still ringing in ears. He was used to that routine since he was ten. He always woke up two hours early so that he wouldn’t ruin his record of perfect attendance. After all as the class’ ‘Vigilante’ he had to set an good example.
‘Vigilante’ was an honorary position given from the teachers to students who showed great feats of honesty, in-time presence, and breaking up shady dealings in the class. Basically a stigma that wrote “exclude me” on those who had to bear it.
When Felix went downstairs, he found the table was still filled with the remains of last nights dinner, leaving it to him to clear himself a place to eat. Shortly afterwards he prepared his school material, quickly started the computer, checked the emails, and shut it down again.
One minute later Felix was already on his bike, ready to reach the school ten minutes before he was due.
The path was the same everyday; a pineyard, now reduced to a pile of dead trees and (for some reasons) boars, the secondary street to the marketplace, and finally the last bit to school. That way was printed onto his retina after seeing it for dozens upon dozens of times.
Few things changed, not even the branches and the parked bikes changed their position during the week. He felt like he was caught in the ‘Truman-show’, only that the actors were more varied.
Felix arrived at school very early, half an hour before the lessons began, so he took it slow and started to think about his upcoming day.
First, dead-languages-hours AKA Latin and Greek, with a teacher who seemed drunk twenty four seven; then missionary indoctrination AKA Religion, with a professor who dressed himself like a fourteenth century preacher; and finally, Epic, which was the only decent thing all morning...
By the time he finished thinking about it, the groundkeeper opened the gates and let him in, and a few minutes later, the bell rang.
Felix finally realized why he hated working with his classmates and the reason that he allied himself with the professors instead, trying to defend his mates. The fact that he was a brony, something that seemed unacceptable to the pea-sized minds of his male classmates, who labelled him as a "girly boy" and picked on him about it. At least he had his above average size and strength, that kept others from harming him physically, but that didn’t change the fact that they were annoying.
One of his classmates approached him, obviously looking for trouble.
"Hey, Felix, did you play with your Barbies today?"
"Well, no, and you? Did you remembered to have your daily lobotomy? It seems yes!"
"Ooh, the lady is angry!"
"And the baby has learned to talk, a miracle, considering the size of your brain."
The ‘discussion’ was interrupted by the arrival of the Latin/Greek teacher, who started her "baby talk" as usual.
Finally the last lesson passed. Felix ran to his bike as fast as he could, to avoid other attacks from his "friends". After all, hearing them talk all the morning, didn't make him happy to see them, nor was he in the mood to even greet them before leaving.
When Felix arrived at home, he noticed that it was only noon, meaning he had time to surf the Internet a bit before lunch. He started the PC, connected to the Internet and took a look in his usual brony forum. Only then he saw a new feature, a chat room!
That seemed great in Felix's eyes. When he couldn’t have a real conversation without being ridiculed, shunned, or plainly ignored, he could at least chat over the internet.
Felix tried to enter in the chatroom, but it seemed that it was not ready yet. He wasted a bit of time browsing whatever site he came across. After twenty minutes, the chatroom activated, and showed only one user. Felix had never seen this user on the forum, but still there he was. He wasn't even in the list of the members, how he could be in the sites chat room? Quickly Felix shoved his doubt aside as paranoia and greeted the new user...
The other side:
Twilight returned home after she had helped out the other library, only to see Spike using her new computer.
“Note to self: Never leave Spike alone if you want to be the first to use the new equipment...” She thought to herself.
"Spike, who gave you the permission to use my computer?"
" No one, but after all..."
"I don’t want you near the computer without supervision, and I’m you legal guardian. That means that you have to obey me."
"Well, still, I found something interesting while going on the Net: I found a place..."
"Gimme that! I desire to see! I don't want you to see...", but Twilight only saw a red window, with a white letters in it.
"-Hi !
The text was accompanied by an image of what seemed to be Nurse Redheart as a filly and a blue name "Theoric Medic".
Twilight was surprised by it, and she tried by instinct to write in the chat, which seemed to work:
"-I don't know, I stumbled in here thanks to Spike, my assistant."
"- Well, interesting, now, how you could you enter here in forum's chatroom ? "
Twilight looked at Spike with a disappointed expression, then she wrote: "-Well, still, who are you? And where did you get that picture?"
"-I am one of the administrator of the forum, and I got the picture from Deviantart. If you want, I can give it to you"
"-What is an ‘Administrator’? And ‘DeviantArt’?"
"-Never been on the internet before?", a little picture of Rainbow Dash laughing appeared.
Twilight started to worry even more:Where in the Tartarus did he get those images?
"-Well, no, it's my first time..."
"-So, follow me into this place between heaven and hell! I will give you a link to 4Chan, so you will witness the Internet in all its glory... and its horror."
Twilight Sparkle didn't reacted well to that phrase.
"All it's glory... and horror? Wow, this is a messy place, but what if I found something dangerous? I hope not, but...” She took an helmet, and put it on before she wrote: "I'm ready, give me that ‘link’ and I will be with you."
On the screen a light green writing appeared: the text was ineligible, but when she clicked on it, the window changed to one of a green-and-white screen, with lots of text, and images of her saying the most random things, varying between "I have no idea!" and "I can't sleep... I want to post ponies": the last one was a pic of her when she went insane over forgetting the letter some time ago. She was annoyed, and wanted to know more about the whole thing.
Twilight, still quite surprised by the image she saw before, asked "-What..what was that?"
"-Bronies, part of 4Chan. I thought you were one of us."
"-Who are those... ‘bronies’?"
"-Well, short explanation, the bronies are teenagers and young adults who like the TV show ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’. For more details, here’s the Wikipedia page."
A block of blue text appeared in the chat. The text was still illegible, but the letters were different from those before... she clicked on the page and started to read it. It was only ten minutes later that she stumbled upon the section titled “Synopsis”.
"The show is about the adventures of the purple unicorn Twilight Sparkle."
Disturbed by what she read she returned to the chat, asking: “Who would be so mentally disturbed to follows me around and writes all this stuff down?”
The answer came swiftly and surprised her more than she could express.
"-Well, I guess that you are Twilight Sparkle, unless you arre a strange guy. Sorry for the shock, but I thought that you were a human. Seeing you in the brony forum made me curious about your presence in this chatroom."
Twilight's jaw dropped, and a short jingle played in her head before she passed out.
One hour later, Twilight awoke, surrounded by her friends. After a short awkward silence, Rainbow Dash asked: "Why did you pass out? Did you study too much again? Well, I told you egghead to not keep studying until late night!"
"No, Rainbow, I found out something quite shocking..."
"What is it Twilight?"
"I we are being... STALKED!"
"What does it mean?"
"It means that we are being watched...", Pinkie Pie said sarcastically while entering through a windows.
"Well, that's new..."
"Yes for you Pinkie, but I always thought that you were just being random when you talked to thin air. I never believed that you were actually ‘breaking the fourth wall’."
"Well, now there is the proof that I really do it! By the way, where did you find this info?"
"On my new computer... while I was connected to the internet..."
"The what?"
"A system of communication who connects between eachother different computers... but this doesen't seem propely techinical way... it's used more as "chat system" between distant people, no matter their work..."
"That seems interesting, how it works?", Twilight Sparkle started to explain briefly as possible to Pinkie how all the thing worked, until Pinkie, eventually burned out, asked abruptly :
"And where did you go?"
"Spike did it. He opened some type of site called "Legionari Brony", a site that talks about us and what we are doing..."
"Well, I’m going to try it out." Pinkie bounced downstairs and turned on the computer then she accessed the internet... only to suddenly stop. She could not type the name.
"Twilight, how do you write with you hooves?"
"I have these sticks but...": she couldn’t finish the sentence because Pinkie Pie already had grabbed a stick in her mouth and started to type the name of the site.
The other part:
After he had lunch and did his homeworks, Felix sat down in front of his computer and tried to enter the site again. He wanted to see if Twilight Sparkle was still in the chatroom, which she was, the text however had a lot more spelling errors than before.
He asked: "-Oh, hi, Twilight, are you there?"
"-No, I'm Pinkie Pie, nice to meet you."
"-Likewise.
-Anyhow, if you have questions about something related to me, ask freely"
Five minutes passed before she answered:” -Oh hi, can I ask you some questions? First: how can you see us? I mean, how are you able to watch us while we are on our adventures?"
“- Well, it’s a bit weird, there’s a woman here who writes cartoons about you. She’s called Lauren Faust. However I don’t know whether you are really just cartoon figures written by her, or if maybe she just writes down the things she sees in your world. I mean you seem to have some sort of free will, so the second option doesn’t seem entirely impossible."
"-Lauren Faust? Are we talking about the same pony here?"
"-I don't know, who is she in your world?"
"-The mother of Celestia and Luna..."
"-Well, so yes, in mine she is the creator of the "peeping", so it's surely her."
"-Mmm, so you are saying that basically a human is seeing what we are doing here, and is writing about us to entertain other humans?"
"- Theoretically no. It all started as a way to sell toys to little children, and there were other stories before yours. I’m not sure if it’s too much for you to handle, but I might think that those were about your ancestors. "
"-Well, there’s nothing that could stop me from exploring it..."
"-If I really can’t stop you...", Felix searched on Youtube for the episodes, hoping to NOT find them, but sadly he did. He found two or three of them. He lightly bit his tongue and ground his teeth before he posted the link.
A few minutes later, Twilight Sparkle returned to the chat and said: "-Well, nothing too bad. If they really were my ancestors, then they were probably a bit less intelligent. Anyway, back to our topic, how did this peepshow of our lives become entertainment for adults?"
"-It's not properly for grew up, but maybe after a long selection of particular situations she took the ones who seem with more enjoyable quotes coming from the various things coming from our culture, something more enjoyable by we as young adult/teenagers; plus, the "moral lessons" are teached assuming that the spectator has a bit of brain, at difference of the other "generations"... "
"-So if I understand it correctly, some teenagers watched the show and though it was good, and from there things escalated quickly.
-I want to ask more questions, but the others want their turn as well."
"-No problem, just tell me who I’m talking to beforehand and I will try to answer all your questions."
The pony part:
Twilight left her friends alone with the computer and started to reorganize the library. Meanwhile Rainbow Dash moved to the computer, she took the stick and started typing: "-Hi! I'm Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in Ponyville, who are you?"
"I'm Felix Mazzoni, but I can't claim any honorifics, so, I guess that you want to know what I work as."
"-You read in my mind! What do you work as?"
"-Well, actually I don't work, I'm still in school..."
"-And how got access to the internet and a computer, if you are still studying?
-I mean, if you are still studying, then you are like... 10 years old`. You couldn’t have paid for it and I doubt that your parents would allow you to use such things..."
"-It's because the school here lasts just a little bit longer than it does in your world. Also my parents know what I'm doing on the PC, otherwise, they would never allow me to own one."
"-Well, so it's all paid by your parents. But how can you keep studying ? Are there equivalents of unicorns in your dimension?"
"-No, they aren't, but I have to keep studying because school is compulsory for ten years instead of five. Also you can’t really get a good job without a proper education."
"-Well, pity you..."
"-Nah, it’s better than having to do manual labour at age sixteen.
-I mean, sure it builds character, but I'm not suited for that"
"-So you are a bookworm like Twilight? "
"-Well, basically yes. Maybe I'm more socially awkward than she is, but I am less order-obsessed. Actually I’m a rather messy person.
-Anyway, other questions?"
"-Yes: If I fell into your dimension still in pony form and assuming that everyone accepts me, where would I end up?
-Still in a Weather Division? I’m not exactly a smart pony, and I don’t read that much..."
"-No, you’d probably wind up with the military... or as a clown I don’t know. The weather doesn’t need any looking after around here so you would have to do something else."
"-Good to know! Anyway, it's the first time that I enjoyed chatting with an egghead, congratulations! Hey, could you show me another part of your Internet, I mean one of the parts with me in it."
After a short pause Felix posted a link
"-Here this links to a very good story with you as main character." The text in the chat said.
Rainbow Dash clicked on the link, and a new window appeared, showing a long text.
“Urgh, so much text. But if it has me in it, it must be worth it.” Rainbow Dash thought to herself.
At first she thought that Felix was making a joke when the story turned out to be about Pinkie Pie, but before long she appeared as well... Had Pinkie Pie just murdered her?
Rainbow Dash returned to the chat, only to find another link waiting for her. This one led to a video of a creature reading something on a computer screen, before it startled away from the screen with a sick look on his face.
"-Ahah, it was a prank, don't tell me that it wasn't your reaction! ;-)"
After a moment of confusion, Rainbow Dash laughed as well.
"-Well, good prank. Guess I deserve it for always being so self-centered. Anyway, I still want to see a "decent" story."
"-Here are the links to two sites, enjoy."
One hour later...
Felix took a look the watch, 19:30 p.m., it was time for dinner.
He wrote "-Well, that was an enjoyable experience, goodbye, if you wish to see me again, just be here at the 2:00 p.m. and will be here waiting for you."
He shut down his computer and went downstairs to see what there was for dinner. Unfortunately it was the usual omelette with macaroni. His mother however seemed to mistake his joy over meeting the mane six: "Wow, I never saw you so excited about dinner! What's up?"
"Nothing that you would understand..."
"Is it about school?"
"No, it's about other stuff..."
"What other stuff?"
"How about you shut up and let me eat?",
He quickly finished his meal before storming of.
That night he dreamt about ponies. He talked with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and watched their reactions to the thing he told him. And he dreamt of a lot of other things, but come the morning he didn’t remember any of them.
4 The Fashionista and the Fresh Meat
The Next Day
Felix got up the at the same time as the day before, even though it was Sunday. He prefered learning in the mornings, because his mind had an easier time remembering things like this. His concept of morning however began at 3.00am and ended at 7.00am, so that he usually got up around six, leaving him with enough time to sleep and study.
Immediately after getting dressed he sat down to learn. He started with Latin, then after half an hour, he continued with Greek, and eventually he finished with Math. Those were his only weak spots when it came to grades.
It wasn’t even eight when he had finished learning, so he decided to go down to eat. At this early hour nobody was awake yet.
“Always a step ahead of everyone.” He thought to himself, chuckling lightly. After breakfast he grabbed a big from his extensive library and finished it within five hours, only to directly delve back into learning latin. When he finally finished, he ran to the computer trembling from excitement.
Felix turned on the computer. He connected to and entered the chatroom. It took five minutes before he found the interdimensional connection, labelled as "Unknown Contact" between the others users. He opened the contact and waited for a message, until...
"Good day Felix, I am Rarity, glad to meet you"
"-Me too, Rarity
-Questions?"
The chat went silent for a while before Felix guessed what happened.
“I forget about "Rarity the Drama Queen” part and the fact that she doesn't like these "rude" kind of introductions.”
Just as he finished thinking this a message appeared.
"-Well, it wasn't totally polite from your part do not call me "Miss", but still...
-My question is: what are your standards of.. "fashion" in your world ?"
"-I have no idea: When it comes to fashion I’m a total fish out of water.
-I mean, I only buy clothes when I outgrow the old ones and just put on whatever I can grab, but maybe I can try to tell you something about recent trends.
The styles vary a lot from year to year, but placing gems everywhere would probably considered ‘tacky’ by most."
Five minutes passed without an answer, until Felix took the initiative and said: "-Well, seems I better start digging the grave since you seem to have died from shock."
"-Oh, she isn't dead, she’s simply passed out. She’s going to be fine in a while."
Then the chat closed. Felix sighed and decided to see if the user was still "Unknown Contact".
The message said: "-Hi ! I am Sweetie Belle!"
Pony Part
"Scootaloo, are you sure about this? I mean, Twilight lost consciousness after looking at..."
"Don't be such a chicken Sweetie and type"
Sweetie Belle, still with an unsure look, typed "-Well, I saw that your name is Felix Mazzoni... I have a question about you... "
"- Ask away.."
"-When you chatted with Twilight yesterday, she passed out and dropped to the floor, do you know why?"
"-Yes, mostly because, well, she found that she and her surroundings are "stalked" by me and other humans...."
"-How you could do that?"
"-If you were here when Twilight talked with me last day, then I'm certain that you already saw the explanation, otherwise... well, there is "Discussion History" in the in "Option" bar in this chat window, use it and you will see the explanation of the whole thing again because I really can't explain it that well."
Sweetie Belle looked for the "Option" bar in the chat window, until she found in the far left, then she clicked on the chat history and saw the yesterday's conversation.
Human Part
Felix crossed his fingers in hope.
“Let’s hope that they will react better than Twilight.”
Ten minutes later, another message appeared: "-Ah, that's explain a lot... anyway, we wish to know more about your... "Side culture" “
"-As you wish, but prepare to everything."
A link appeared, and when it was clicked, it transported them to a green page with white windows.
When the fillies entered in the page, they found a series of images of Nurse Redheart using a huge needle filled with green liquid on Applebloom. A caption under the picture read: "Thiz will zting for a moment..."
Applebloom indignantly took the stick and wrote :
"-Eer.. Felix? Why are Apple Bloom and I in this picture? I mean.. I thought that the "seeing" didn't included those flu shots where I ran away in fear..."
"-Didn't know that really happened. Well, I feel pity for you, but actually there is a reason why I created this..."
"-What is it?"
"-I created it for fun.
-I mean, I felt that Nurse Redheart was represented too many times like a compassionate nurse and wanted to imagine the opposite scene and share it with all."
"-Well, then that ‘watching’ doesn’t show the truth, your image captures her character much better. She always acts so strange when we come to her.”
"-What she does of strange?"
"-Well, she seems to enjoy causing unnecessary pain, no matter if bodily or mental."
"-In what sense?"
"-Somehow, Nurse Redheart does... "psychological warfare”. Before she starts the procedure, she distracts us, then when we expect it the least... zot, suddenly the shot, and it’s quite painfully as a result..."
"-It's called "relaxing". She’s just trying to distract you from the shot, so that you don’t get nervous about it. I think if you try not to think too much about it, you will find out it hurts much less.
-Anyway, I understand you, after all, if in your early life you fear the medic like the apocalypse and you dream to cut ht limbs to the doctor's SONS; you are sure that your relations with the medics and maybe your mind are screwed."
"-That's... very bloody... Why are you saying this?"
"-It’s not as bad as it sounds. When I was little I rolled out of the bed, and hurt my lip badly. It was nearly severed.”
"-Ugh, that's quite unfortunate, I have to say..."
"-Well, it was painful but I got over it. I guess that some of it stuck with me, that’s why I sometimes draw medical related stuff.
-Well, after this shocking revelation, do you have any other questions?"
The chat remained silent howev