There was a huge crowd of grown men, women, and children inside the Litwak Arcade who kept visiting everyday for nearly a week, and the reason why was tucked into a corner. It was an all new video game cabinet for Hasbro’s latest My Little Pony video game, and ever since it first arrived, bronies and kids had been lining up in front of the cabinet, playing the game for hours on end. The bright pink and purple video game cabinet stood out amongst the black and warm colored consoles that stood beside it, the title My Little Pony: Arcades Are Magic written in bright pink letters above the screen. Amongst the noise of other video game machines were the sounds of the My Little Pony theme drowning out the noise of gunfire, engine motors, explosions, beeps, and chip tune music from other games. The line of spectators cheered and groaned as they watched whoever was playing the game win or lose as they cross from level to level battling various villains and creatures from the show.

As the closing hour drew near, a 12-year-old boy was playing Twilight, a character that was harder to play than the other Mane 6 thanks to her more complicated controls and abilities that used a lot of bits to power. The boy was blasting away swarms of changelings as they crowded around Twilight. With the joystick in hand and his other hand flying on the buttons, he jumped, flew, and blasted his way through the various obstacles in the game all while colorful music rang in his ears. He was eventually cornered by a manticore, but realized he was all out of bits to use Twilight’s magic. As the manticore chased him down, he directed Twilight along the grassy fields of the game’s version of the Everfree Forest, searching frantically for a bit lying on the ground for him to pick up. He saw one spinning in the tree branches, resembling a large gold coin in the game. He frantically hit the jump button to fly up to the bit, but the manticore flew after Twilight with a roar. It dove down upon Twilight, and pounced on her, taking the last of her HP. The boy and the watching audience let out a cry of disappointment as the screen went black and the words Game Over appeared.

As the next person in-line stepped in, way in the back, struggling to see behind the crowd was a girl—mostly known as Moppet Girl to her classmates—standing in the back, hoping for a chance to play, but with the long line in her way, she finally gave up, and searched for a new game to play. As she looked about the arcade, she found a game with the title Sea Bottom written on the top of the cabinet. The cabinet had several drawings of sea life floating amongst a cartoony depiction of an ocean floor. Moppet Girl felt tempted to play, but then she noticed an Out-of-Order sign taped to the screen.

“Mr. Litwak,” said Moppet Girl, “what’s wrong with this game?”

Mr. Litwak was standing nearby when Moppet Girl called him. He turned around to see the Sea Bottom game and said, “Oh yes, sorry about that. I’ve had problems with this game for a while, and it looks like it has finally given up the ghost. I’ll have someone come by to throw it out tomorrow. If you want, you could try Hero’s Duty.”

“No, that’s all right,” said Moppet Girl. “It’s getting late anyway.”

Mr. Litwak looked at his watch. “Oh, you’re right.” He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, “Everyone, the arcade will be closing in 10 minutes.”

As the sun went down, the gamers slowly left the arcade for closing time. Several disappointed gamers who had been waiting outside of the My Little Pony cabinet had to leave and try again tomorrow morning. As the gamers filed out of the arcade one by one, Mr. Litwak did some last minute clean up before activating the security alarm and closing for the night.

Within the My Little Pony arcade cabinet, the world of Equestria as presented in the cartoon came to life. Every location from the show was reconstructed by programmers and populated by NPC’s based on background characters from the show along with the game’s avatars. As the game’s external servers shut down for the night, the characters in this digital version of Equestria took a break for the night. The NPC of Princess Luna had already raised the moon, leaving Equestria in the dark underneath a digitally created sky.

Applejack, who was the last avatar to be played, pulled herself out of the pit the player had accidently fallen her into.

“That gamer clearly needs to practice on some NES games before trying a 3D platformer,” said Applejack.

The timberwolves that had been chasing Applejack scampered back to the Everfree Forest now that they were done for the day.

“Thanks for your help,” said Applejack, sarcastically, as she watched them go.

Applejack cantered along the gravel roads where the remaining avatars were waiting at the entrance to Ponyville. Although the arcade was closed, some NPC’s as well as bits still remained alongside the road, mostly animals and background ponies. Thinking she might need some, Applejack collected some of the coins, each one disappearing with a soft ring with her touch.

“Hoowee,” Applejack as she stretched out her legs. “That was certainly a rough play through.”

“Although, that little girl who was playing me was really cute,” said Fluttershy.

“I don’t know about you girls, but today’s play through has left me parched,” said Pinkie. “I’m going to Tapper’s for a drink. Who wants to come along?”

“We’ll catch up with ya later,” said Applejack.

“Okay, but don’t keep me waiting long.” Pinkie skipped along toward the exit, humming merrily.

“Sooooo,” said Rainbow, “I could really go for a root beer float from Tapper, too. Do you girls want to join me?”

“I’ll catch up with you later,” said Twilight. “I want to finish a little magic experiment I was doing this morning.”

“Great, have fun with that, Twilight,” said Spike.

“Hold on, I need your help, remember?” said Twilight.

“Aw, but I want to go to Tapper.”

“It won’t take long, and if you help me, I promise to get you the biggest root beer float Tapper has. How’s that sound?”

Spike licked his lips with glee before eagerly climbing onto Twilight’s back.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Twilight opened her wings. “Don’t wait up for me, girls.”

“We’ll see you later then, Twilight,” said Fluttershy.

Twilight and Spike soared over the streets of Ponyville. Aside from the digital cell shading, it looked little different from the show it was based on. Several familiar background characters lived in the surrounding houses, waving and greeting Twilight and Spike as they traveled to the large castle outside of the town.

Within the alchemy room of Twilight’s castle, a lone figure was tampering with beakers full of chemicals. The figure was a mermaid, or at least some programmer’s distorted idea of a mermaid. He was dwarfish in size and had a body covered in grayish-green scales from his tail fin up to his scrawny upper man body. His clawed hands fiddled with the beakers, putting small doses of powders into the beakers. His fork tongue hung out of his frog-like mouth as he giggled with glee. His coal black eyes darted from left to right as he worked.

“Oh, this is going to be so awesome.”

An identical mermaid NPC hovered outside of the window, staring at him, impatiently. “Hurry up, the princess is coming.”

“All done.” The mermaid—programed to levitate off the ground when out of water—flew up off of the table and out the window.

Twilight flew through the window on the other side of the room, landing gracefully next to the table.

“So what’s this experiment for, anyway?” asked Spike as he climbed off of Twilight’s back.

“I’m trying to make a potent sleeping potion that will sedate some of the more overly aggressive timberwolves.”

“And what do you need me for?”

“I need you as my test subject.”

“What? You’re not going to use me as a Guinea pig.”

“Don’t worry, I’m actually using you to test if my potion won’t work. I’m trying to create sleeping potions that only affect different creatures, and this potion is designed not to affect dragons.” Twilight used her telekinesis to mix the chemicals together in mid air. She placed the beaker of the potion onto a Bunsen burner, and with a twist of the nob, the burner hissed as gas escaped. Twilight lit the burner with a spark from her horn.

As Twilight worked, Spike noticed traces of the powder the mermaid left behind on the table. He ran a claw along the table’s surface and sniffed the powder he collected.

“Hey, Twilight,” he said, “what’s this?”

Twilight knelt over the powder. She cast an identification spell, and as the glow of the spell left her horn, she concluded that... “This is a combination of gunpowder and dry enchanted drought mushrooms. In other words, it’s evaporation powder.”

“What’s evaporation powder?”

“It’s a joke powder used to cause potions to explode into steam. I’ve seen foals use it to tamper with potions as part of a prank.”

“How does it work?”

“Easy, you just sprinkle a little into your potion and it explodes into a large mist.”

“If that’s what the powder does, then why was it on your table?” Spike leaned aside to see the beaker on the Bunsen burner begin to rattle as the potion inside bubbled and fizzed. “Uh, Twilight...”

In a loud pop followed by a fizzling sound, the potion exploded into a white cloud that filled the room.

Twilight coughed as the spicy scent of the potion wafted into her nose, but the potion’s effects were already working into her system. She wobbled to one side as her legs could no longer support her. “Spike...where...?” Twilight toppled over, asleep on the floor.

Spike yawned as he too swayed from side to side. “Twi...?” He lay down beside her, sleepily closing his eyes.

“Ha, it worked,” said the mermaid as he poked his head through the window. “Now, let’s hurry up and get her out of here.”

One of the mermaids scooped up Twilight in both arms while the other collected her equipment and stuffed as many as he could into his backpack.

Meanwhile, as the potion began to fade from Spike’s system, he opened his eyes to see the mermaids leave with Twilight through the window.

“No...stop...” he watched helplessly as the mermaids flew off.

Spike climbed onto his feet. “At least the potion doesn’t entirely work on dragons. I better get the others for help.”

Twilight groaned as she regained consciousness. Her vision was blurred as she opened her eyes, seeing nothing but gray granite everywhere she looked. She got up from the cold stone floor.

“Ugh, where am I?” she asked as she looked about the empty dungeon cell. Her hooves were bound in thick iron manacles. She used her magic to teleport, but her magic fizzled as it left her horn. “Celestia damn it! I forgot to collect more bits after the arcade closed.” As she talked, she noticed air bubbles rising from her mouth with each exhale. She moved her head and legs about, and noticed how her movements were slowed and her hair waved about weightlessly. “I’m underwater? But how can this be?”

She leaned over to a nearby rectangular window too small for her to squeeze through. From the distant objects she could glean through the tiny window, she could see that she was high up from the ground, locked on the top of a tower. Through the haze of the light filtering through ocean bottom, she could see a vast underwater city made up of corral and stone structures. Although Twilight could barely make out the visual details of the world outside, she could tell right away from the low resolution appearance of the world as well as its darker colors that she was no longer in her own game, but instead she was in a much older and bleaker colored game.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in my game, Princess Twilight.” The door to Twilight’s cell slid open, and in drifted a seahorse no larger than Twilight’s petite body. He had sea greenish-blue scales as well as large pointed scales along his head and spine. His body was made up of polygons crudely textured with smaller colored pixels, giving him the appearance of a digital representation of a sea crystal.

The seahorse drifted over to Twilight, his long mouth moving as he spoke. “Don’t worry about drowning. The water effects in Sea Bottom have been programmed to allow game avatars and NPC’s to breath in it.”

“Sea Bottom?” asked Twilight. “That’s the game across from the My Little Pony cabinet. Why’d you bring me here?”

“Because you’re here to help me. My name is Trojan Seahorse—Trojan for short—and as I assume you’re aware, my game is going to be unplugged in the morning and I need your help, for I am in a dire strait.”

“I can’t do anything to save your game. You’ll just have to move elsewhere.”

“My game is beyond saving, I concede. It is destined to depart its mortal coil and meet all the other lost games in the hereafter. Alas, the game threatens to whisk away my soul along with it.”

Twilight glared at Trojan with her mouth agape. “Uh, what’re you talking about?”

“Oh sorry,” said Trojan, waving his tail about. “I was never programed with a personality or a backstory, so I’ve been experimenting with some identities for me and this time, I decided to become a poet. As it turns out, speaking in iambic pentameter is harder than I realized. Of course, it would help if I knew what iambic pentameter was.” He stroked his long snout with his tail as he thought. “Oh, I know. I’ll go back to being a mad scientist character. But first, I should practice my evil laugh for a second.” He coughed to clear his throat. “HaHaHa! That was okay. How about...hehehehe! Oh no, that won’t do at all. Ho ho ho! Now I sound like Santa. Mwahahaha! A little better, but now I sound like Lex Luthor. I know I said I wanted to be a mad scientist archetype, but I don’t want to sound too corny. What do you think?”

Twilight gawked at him. “What in Tartarus are you talking about? I don’t care what personality you’re trying to rip off. I just want to go home.”

“Not until you help me first. For you see, the reason why I’m not programmed with a personality or a backstory is because I’m a glitch and a glitch can't leave his or her game.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but what do you expect me to do about it?”

“You are programmed with powerful magical abilities. If anyone can find a way to enable me to escape, it's you.”

“And if I refuse?”

Trojan hovered over her, glaring down upon her. “This game will be unplugged in the morning. If I’m not out of this game by then, neither will you. Get it?”

Twilight frowned angrily. “Got it!”

“Good! And don’t even think about escaping. Neither your hooves nor your wings will get you very far underwater, and I know you don’t have enough bits to teleport.”

A group of mermaids swam into the cell, carrying spell books, crystal balls, dowsing rods, jars of various alchemy ingredients, a children’s science kit, and a treasure chest filled to the top bits collected from the My Little Pony game. All of the objects were laid out before her with the exception of the bits, which were placed behind Trojan out of Twilight’s reach.

“You should have all the equipment you need and if you need any bits to power your magic, I will give you some, but not enough for you to teleport out of here. Now, you start working on getting me out of this game while I practice my evil laugh. Mwahaha! That one sounded better.”