Prologue

The door slammed shut, followed by the sound of a car starting and pulling out of the driveway with a high pitched squeal of friction. Well, that kind of sucked. We were now left home alone... again.

Our foster parents were out doing god knows what, like usual. My older brother Colten and I had grown tired of the stories that our supposed “guardians” had been feeding us, so we stopped caring about them lately. Not like it matters anyway. If we're being sent back to the orphanage, who cares if we listen to their lies, their deception is of no concern to us anymore.

This day started out like any other, with lots of intense arguing. We never get along with the families who try to adopt us, usually because of Colten. He is always saying that we shouldn't have to take their bullshit (his words, not mine) since we’re both practically men already. And you know what, who am I to disagree? Colten's a pretty smart guy, smarter than me at least, probably more mature too, but that’s besides the point. He believes that if he studies enough, he'll get a good enough job to support the both of us. Then, with a little time and a lot of patience, we'll buy an RV and travel the world together. It's highly unlikely, but it's still nice to have dreams.

Anyways, it seems that Mr. Finch, one half of our most recent guardians, reached his limit today. After having a yelling match with my brother, he grabbed his wife and stormed out of the house. The last words he said to us went something like, "This is why no one wants to keep you. You’re nothing but low life, good-for-nothing pieces of shit! And that's all you'll ever be! Pack your bags, because tomorrow we're giving you back!" Truly, he’s such a generous and nice guy, right?

No one got hurt, so I guess everything is fine. Actually, I am surprised that Mr. Finch wasn't the violent type. You can’t blame me, the guy’s constantly yelling at us about how “we’ll never make it out there!” or how “we’ll never amount to anything!”, but my personal favorite is “I can see why your parents left you!”. That last one always cuts deep. It’s why I don't care too much for the Finches. Well, mostly it was just Mr. Finch who I don’t like. Mrs. Finch on the other hand is a rather nice lady. I like her a lot, but she’s not strong enough to stand up to her husband. Its a shame it didn’t work out, I could’ve gotten used to her delicious chocolate chip cookies. Oh well.

Now, Colten and I are just hanging out in the living room, awaiting for the inevitable. We, fortunately, had the entire afternoon to do as we pleased. Colt decided to spend his time buried in some book about politics and how they work... Boring! I, on the other hand, had a date with my friend, Tivo. There aren't any good TV's at the orphanage, and the few channels we got sucked, so this was my last chance to enjoy some quality entertainment. While I could watch so many other things, I decided that I’d rather watch a marathon of My Little Pony, especially since I wouldn’t be able to watch it soon. I’m what you would call an ‘out of the closet’ brony.

I say "out of the closet" for two reasons:

1. I don't have anyone to hide it from. Colten was pretty chill about it when he found out and that's all that really matters to me.

2. Why should I give a fuck what other people think about me!

Ok, lets get one thing clear. I love Tivo, no questions asked. You see, all I have to do is go to the menu, click on "TV shows", scroll to the section labeled "Family" then, I just type in the letter "m" on the search bar aaaand... Badda Bing, Badda Boom! Ponies! I instantly have a list of all the latest updates as well as some of my favorite episodes, so I'll say it again. I love Tivo!

I flopped onto the couch, in front of the TV, and prepared my body for the shitstorm of adorableness that is MLP. Once I found my favorite episode, my finger mercilessly spammed the "select" button.

But, what happened next was far from the magical show of techni-colored ponies. No, instead it was something so incredibly interesting that it forced my brother to stir from his book. The TV screen, it just...well...turned blue. I just blue screened the TV....the hell!?

The room was submerged in an extremely awkward silence. I turned to Colten in hopes that he had the answers to this phenomenon, but he was just glaring at me. Not with anger, but with annoyance. We only get angry with outsiders, never each other.

"What did you do?", he asked with a groan.

I just stared at him dumbly, as his dark green eyes met my light blue ones, seeming to look past me and stare straight into my soul, it made me shiver under his gaze. Colten seems to have that effect on people so it’s nothing new. Shrugging my shoulders I replied, "I have no clue! It just sort of died on me and then turned blue."

Colten wasn’t convinced.

"Zack, technology doesn't just break on its own. You don't have to lie to me. Just tell me what you did so I can fix it.", he explained.

"I don't know what the hell happened! All I did was go to the menu and put on some ponies. Honest!", I exclaimed, while using my flimsy arms to emphasize  my confusion.

What the hell, I’d never lie to him. what’s his deal?

Colten was about to give his retort when a heavy, disembodied, voice cut him off.

"Good evening.", it hummed.

The voice was very raspy, with static in between each word uttered. We frantically searched for the source of the voice, but after a quick scan of the living room, we confirmed that no one else was around. Then, who was...

"Over here!", the voice yelled, clearly irritated.

Our eyes instantly grew wide as dinner plates once it finally dawned on us. We slowly turned our attention to the bright blue screen in front of us. The screen now had a dark red line across it. Kinda looked like a heart monitor when it’s flat lining, only without the obnoxious noise.

"Greetings young ones.", the voice boomed.

With every word, small, red bumps would wave across the screen, like in Futurama when Bender talks. Right now I was past being shocked and had begun to freak the hell out! This was the. coolest. thing. ever!

"Oh my god, Colt, the Tivo knows how to talk!", I squealed excitedly.

"What?!", Tivo asked, not knowing what a "Tivo" was.

"Holy shit! You’re right, he can talk!", Colten shouted gleefully.

This was so kick-ass. Suddenly, the TV screen went bright red, with a black line instead of red.

"Quiet!!!", Tivo yelled.

The force of his voice shattered all the windows in the immediate vicinity. Glass lightly tinkled to the floor, while car alarms could be heard in the distance. Colten and I shut up quickly after that display of raw power. We sank in our seats out of fear of what the insane TV would do next.

Once his colors returned to normal, Tivo calmly continued, “How would you like to play a game? I’ve seen both of you struggle, witnessed your pains, and I believe I know of a simple solution. Make it all... disappear. All I ask,” he finished with a deep, metallic chuckle, “is that you trust me.”

Okaaaay, our TV is now talking aloud, asking us to ‘trust’ it, and I’m pretty sure I’m still awake. In other words, we’re probably tripping balls from some non- existent drug that was in our soda. After what seemed like forever, Colten finally sucked up his gut, and dropped a pair, breaking the uncomfortable silence that haunted the room. Thank Tivo HE did, because I sure as hell wasn't going to.

"W-what kind of game?", he asked nervously.

Tivo chuckled to himself. Obviously, we had missed the joke, because we sure as shit weren't laughing. I guess being a god (learned about that later) makes you go a little cray cray after a while.

"If you could, would you want to go to Equestria?", Tivo questioned.

Oh hell yes!

"No.", Colten replied.

"What the fuck?", I cried.

We both turned to each other. Colt gave me his best "are you kidding me?" face, which I more than happily returned. He then opened his mouth, shut it, then started blubbering, his voice pleading, "Dude, it’s too girly there. Besides, it doesn't even exist! Listen to me bro, I know you’re into that kind of stuff, but there is no way I would willingly step one foot into that prissy, pink, pony world. Could...could we just forget about it?"

"You’re fucking kidding me, right?! You want to go back to an orphanage, instead of a wonderful utopia, full of wonderful and amazing creatures?! Also, I'd like to point out that we didn't think a talking Tivo existed a few minutes ago, and look how wrong we were! Who knows what else we could be wrong about!", I growled back angrily.

Now, I love my brother very much, but I wouldn’t let that stop me from slapping the shit out of him in front of Tivo. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us and he is just going to throw it out the window! That's just crazy!

"You’re actually both wrong.", Tivo interrupted.

Wait, is it weird that I almost forgot that the TV in the room was talking to us? Breaking our little spat, we both turned and looked at Tivo questionably.

Seeing as we were going to let him finally talk, the talking picture radio began to explain, "You see, the Equestria that you are describing does not exist. The harsh, yet honest, reality is that Equestria, and the world it is located in, is in terrible turmoil. Cities burn, the innocent are slaughtered, and slavers rules with an iron fist. The land is on the precipice of war.

What the fuck? War? When the hell did ponies turn violent?

"Months ago, a Draconequus started a game. You don’t need to know the specifics, but each player must choose a piece. Now the pieces are causing mayhem and destruction wherever they travel. I would like to see how much pandamonium you two could cause, it promises to be quite... amusing.", Tivo continued.

Draconequus? Isn’t Discord one of those? Well, it sounds like him, but why would he do that? Wait, does that mean that the pieces are responsible for...

"Now do you see why I told you I didn’t want to do this, Zack?", Colt shot at me, his glare capable of melting steel. After holding it for a few seconds, he turned back to Tivo, his glare still firmly in place. "You’re not very good at recruiting. Why would we decide to go with you, if Equestria is in such terrible shape?"

Tivo only chuckled before responding, "Who said anything about letting you decide?"

Suddenly, the entire world started to fade away. As the world began to disappear, I realized two things.

1) I had just been drafted.

2) I never got to watch my MLP marathon.

"FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuu...." Next Chapter: Chapter One Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 5 Minutes