"LLLLLEEEEETTT'SSSS PLAAAYYY!!!" A male voice boomed across the dark room, and all three alicorns leapt out of their seats.
"What the hay was THAT!!??" Luna looked around the darkness, her eyes wide with panic.
"Is there anyone else in here?" Celestia raised an eyebrow, scrambling to her hooves and putting her chair upright. Her horn glowed, illuminating the room. There was nothing but the closed door and the dim glow from their monitors and controller indicator lights.
"Well I guess it's nothing then. Let's continue, aye." Cadence said, quickly dismissing the odd encounter.
"For some reason I have the word 'X-Ray' in my head." Luna rubbed her head, frowning. Then she dismissed it as nothing and put on her headphones.
"You're wearing them backwards again." Celestia pointed out to Cadence as she put hers on too.
"No I'm not." Cadence raised an eyebrow, getting back in her seat.
"Yes, you are. I can see it." Celestia said flatly.
"Well it's more comfortable this way." Cadence shrugged, and Celestia shook her head.
"Alright. Picking up where we left off...." Luna clicked her shoulders and hooves, and picked up her controller.
"Oh yeah. Luna." Celestia's expression dimmed.
"Yes, dear sister?" Luna smiled in a sickly nice manner.
"Get me out of here." Celestia said, looking up from the bottom of the pit, on her bed and amongst a sea of lava.
"What's that?" Luna giggled. "I can't hear you!"
"Get me out of here."
"Magic word."
"No."
"Nuh-uh. Then you ain't getting out of there." Luna would've made a troll face if she knew how to wrinkle up her entire face.
"Fine." Celestia almost snarled. "Get me out of here, PLEASE."
"Nnnnnope." Luna laughed, and started humping the air above the only opening to the cave.
"B-b-but-"
"I didn't say the magic word would work." Luna started dancing around the opening.
"Luuuunaaaa...." Celestia whined.
"Oh, fine. You need stuff to get back up here right?" Luna grinned. "Here, have a bunch of wood." She said, and her in-game character started letting loose a barrage of vomiting. She made a gurgling noise to go with it as hundreds of wood blocks were thrown down the opening.
"Cool. Tha-" Celestia picked up the blocks, and it took a slight second for her eyes to adjust to the items in her inventory. But when they did... "LUNA!" She yelled.
"Something wrong?" Luna asked.
"Fences. How the buck, am I supposed to climb up with FENCES." Celestia growled.
"Dunno. Figure that out yourself." Luna laughed, sealed up the opening, and went to go keep mining with Cadence.
"Hey Luna. We ran out of food again." Cadence said, punching the stone blocks with a diamond pick axe.
"What!? HOW??" Luna yelled. "I GOT SOME A MINUTE AGO!!"
"I got hungry." Cadence said. "So I ate it all. Now go make a sandwich."
Luna looked at her hunger bar. It wasn't exactly in the best state.
"Note I can't make sandwiches in this game." She said. "And even if I did manage to make one, it would be for me."
"Please?" Cadence tried.
"There we go." Luna said, going to fetch her bow and arrows.
"HOW COME IT WORKS WHEN CADENCE SAYS IT!?" Celestia felt like wrangling Luna's neck, as per usual with these two royal sisters.
"Cause Cadence is cuddly-wuddly." Luna said, and strangled Cadence with a hug.
"Alright. One, is your sister not? And two, am I missing anything?" Celestia raised an eyebrow.
"No, and no." Luna grinned. "Oh yeah. Since this is a princess slash alicorn meet up, why isn't Fluer or Twilight here?"
"Pffffft. Twilight? She's too busy doing all the work that I can't be bothered doing. And Fluer's probably busy hogging Fancy Pants." Celestia said.
Awkward silence fell upon the room, in which only clicks of controllers were heard.
"So, basically this is the forever alone meet up." Luna said slowly, and her sister nodded.
"Speak for yourselves." Cadence said proudly, drawing annoyed glances from the siblings.
"Alright. I'm outside." Luna said, choosing not to reply to Cadence. "Here, little critters. Moooo..." She started, creeping around in the tall grass.
"Stop, Luna. It's getting really creepy. Sooner or later I'm gonna start thinking you're a real carnivore." Cadence noted, then from the corner of her eye saw a bit of Celestia's screen. Curiosity taking over, she peered over. "You've been awfully quiet. Watcha doin?"
"Building a bridge." Celestia replied, somewhat proudly. "Used the bed as a step, and now I'm on the fence posts. Tease it..." She muttered, concentrating on her screen and controller. She was placing down the fence posts and building a bridge to the little platform where the odd cow was. The posts weren't touching the lava, so technically- from experience anyway- they shouldn't catch fire.
"Clever." Cadence nodded with a 'not bad' expression on her face, and returned to her screen. More mining and punching stuff.
Luna gasped. "I found cow." There was an obvious sound as she pulled the bow into full tension.
"Luna."
"Yes?"
"STAHP."
"Nope." Luna said, and released the bow. "Ooh MARK NUUUTT!!!" She yelled, then frowned at herself. The other two turned to look at her. "Why did I even say that? WHAT THE HAY DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!!??? Oh well. Beef for... Lunch? If I get back in time. Otherwise it's dinner. Oh wait- it's gonna be dinner." She sighed as the sky started turning orange, the area around her darkening and accompanied by a certain degree of lag. "Just wait for me to get back. Need more meat."
"Yeah. Just don't get killed." Cadence said- a bad omen.
A few minutes later...
"Ha! I finally built this damn bridge!" Celestia said triumphantly, and was just about to step down onto solid land when she heard a loud 'MOOOOO'.
Something brown flashed onto her screen, and she saw that she was being pushed.
"NO COW NO!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!???" She yelled, but it was too late.
"Moooo."
"Molestia5000 tried to swim in lava. Really? What happened to the bridge?" Cadence raised an eyebrow.
Celestia faked a sob. "Why... Cow... Why.... I thought we were friends...."
Cadence held a hoof up to her throat and coughed. "Your sister killed my family." She said in a thick stallion's voice, mimicking her idea of a cow.
"Then banished to the moon she shall be." Celestia said jokingly, pressing the respawn button.
"Alright. I got enough stuff now-*HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*"
The hissing sound made Luna's spine shiver, and in her panic she ran right into the creeper.
There was a loud boom, and sand blocks flew everywhere they exploded into small white bubbles of smoke.
"Oh... My... God...." Luna was left panting from the adrenaline rush and the scare. She looked up, making sure there were no more on the sand plains. "Half a heart.... HALF! How did I survive that..." She sighed, turned around and started singing. "I'm alive, I'm alive I'm ali- buck! BUCK! YOU MOTHER BUCKER!! BUCK BUCK BUCK!!" She started screaming curses at her monitor, stomping on the ground.
"Well." Cadence said. "NightmareMoon0102 was pricked to death. That must've been pleasant."
"I BUCKING TURNED AROUND AND IT WAS RIGHT THE BUCK THERE!!!" Luna raged, flinging her controller about. Cadence ducked down just in time to avoid getting hit in the head.
"Buck you cow." Celestia said, having respawned and climbed over the bridge again. She punched the cow as it drew near, which was a bad idea since it was immediately driven crazy and started running in circles. "Wait- no no NO! Buck." She cursed as she was knocked into the lava again. But as she started taking damage, she also started punching the cow. It didn't do much though, but in the end it fell in with her. "Damn right." She said.
"Am I the only one who doesn't have some tragic death lingering around me?" Cadence raised an eyebrow. "Ooh. More diamond."
Luna and Celestia looked at each other, and nodded. They said no more.
Celestia finally made it to the other end without cow-tastrophe striking, and let out a sigh of relief. Now she just had to follow this cave and see where it would take her.
"You know what I have problems with?" Luna said, building something in the cave that Cadence was in. She put down a switch, and started punching it around even if it did nothing. "Switches. That's what I have problems with."
"What kind of problems?" Celestia asked, still wandering through the tunnel.
"I'm fine with this one, where you can see the effect. But the digital ones on my phone that say either 'on' or 'off'."
"Yeah, well; what about them?"
"I can never tell what it means." Luna said, and Celestia raised an eyebrow. "Like, it says 'on' on the switch, what the hay does it mean? Does it mean 'press to turn on', or does it mean 'this is on'? Knowing which one makes all the difference."
"Usually it means 'this is on'...." Celestia said slowly.
"Yeah, but what if it means 'press to turn on'? And I accidentally left it 'off' the entire time?"
"You know, all I can think of is how hilarious it would be if somepony changed the button to arm our secret stash of nukes to one of those switches. Luna would go crazy over whether or not the nukes are armed." Celestia chuckled, and Luna threw a poisoned look at her.
"What, so she blows up half of Equestria because of her confusion?" Cadence laughed.
"Anyhow..." Celestia sighed. "Darn it, it's freakin dark in here." She said. There was practically no light in this part of the tunnel. "I feel like I've been going up for quite a while now- might be able to just dig my way...." She started punching the ceiling, expecting it to be stone. But instead, she heard a loud crunch and the next thing she knew her health bar was draining.
Must've punched one of those suspended sand ceilings- and now all the blocks were coming crashing down on her. She tried jumping and walking around to get out of the sand, but it wasn't working as the entire area was made of it.
"Son of a mule." She muttered as the message 'you died' flashed onto her screen.
"Molestia5000 suffocated in a wall. How the hay did you manage to do THAT?" Cadence looked at her incredulously.
"I. Don't. Know." Celestia murmured through gritted teeth.
"How about we give you a peaceful respawn and you do all the digging and mining and work for us?" Luna laughed.
"Nnnngh." Celestia murmured, not even listening to Luna and keeping her eyes on the screen.
"How about we give you a peaceful respawn and you find five diamond ore blocks for us?"
"Nnngh."
"How about I shove my horn up your arse?"
"Nngh. Wait, what?"
"What are you even doing?" Luna peered curiously at Celestia's screen.
Celestia was in the cave again, but it would seem she found something...
"Girls." She said, her character looking up at the ceiling of the cave. The sand had fallen away to reveal something they'd been looking for all night... Stone bricks. "Oh my good holy self. I found a dungeon."
Luna stared at her screen for a short second, then leaned back to hers. "Wait there."
"Diamond sword... Armor... Bow and arrow..." Cadence murmured to herself, punching open a few chests back at what they now call 'HQ', which was the stone house at the bottom of the valley. She emptied her inventory, then packed it up with weapons and equipment.
Luna followed her example, but instead of storing her mined blocks she just dumped them down a hole in the ground and left them to burn up in the lava below.
"Now, to get down there." Cadence muttered. She should have enough diamond armor to survive the drop, she'll just need to be able to recover health later on. For that she had a ton of cooked pork chops to eat. "Alright..." She took in a deep breath. "Let's hope I don't miss the platform. Three, two, on-EEEEP!!" She squealed as Luna punched her with a fist and knocked her into the hole in the floor. She fell straight through, and landed with a crack and an 'oomf' at the bottom, safely away from lava.
"Did you make it?" Luna called from high above.
"Half a heart! I got pork chops though." Cadence yelled back.
"How do earth ponies and unicorns even survive without wings?" Luna wondered to herself, and followed Cadence down the opening. There was a loud crack as she landed on the stone, but held. She quickly ate a few cooked meats and recovered some health.
"To the dungeon!" Cadence sang and hopped on the fence bridge Celestia had made.
Luna followed, using her gamer experience and running across the narrow bridge with relative ease. That is, until she took an arrow to the knee and her character tripped and fell into the lava.
"The buck...?" She barely reacted when all her health drained and her equipment was left to burn in the lava.
"Mwahaha." Celestia said, throwing the bow and arrows back at Cadence who gave them to her earlier. "Cadence did it."
"I HAD ALL MY DIAMOND EQUIPMENT!!! THAT I WAS MINING AND SAVING UP FOR THE PAST TWO HOURS!!" Luna screamed at the respawn button. "WHY THE BUCK WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!!???"
"Um, revenge...?" Celestia went for that, but didn't take her eyes off the screen.
"Uh, aunt...?" Cadence said, nudging Celestia on the elbow. "Celestia."
"What?" Celestia groaned, irritated. Cadence pointed at Luna, and she looked up. "Uh-oh."
Luna's eyes were hidden under the shadow of her mane, and her horn was glowing a dim light-blue. Celestia and Cadence could see the shadows behind she stirring, shifting and turning as if they had a life of their own. Then Luna lifted her head just a slight bit, and her eyes glowed a brilliant white that out-shone all the screens in the room and lit up the darkness in front of her.
"THOU INCOMPETENT TROLLS-" she spoke normally, but somehow her voice was louder than fifty megaphones combined. Even as she said this, her horn was glowing an even more intense and brighter blue than ever before. And its area of effect was increasing as well- the light slowly breaking away from her horn. Celestia and Cadence could only watch dazed as the furniture around them floated into the air, and started circling Luna in a storm of material. "-THOU SHALL TASTE THE NIGHT'S WRATH!!" She yelled, her voice splitting between high and low vocals all at the same time.
*
Chrysalis heard a dull 'boom' in the distance, and looked up from her usual routine of sulking in the desert wilderness in which she currently controlled with her changeling subjects. She watched as a small fireball exploded out the side of Canterlot, flinging several chunks of building material down the cliff. Then the explosion was followed by a loud siren, one that was often heard when tsunamis were approaching. The whaling was faint all these miles over here, but still audible.
"You, come over here." Chrysalis waved lazily at one of her changeling commanders. He fluttered down next to her, standing at full attention. "Remind me... Did I order a bomb strike on Canterlot? I don't remember anymore..."
*
Several days later...
There was a gentle knock on the door to Celestia's bedroom. The princess of the sun looked up with an annoyed grunt- she already knew who was behind the door. "Come in." She said.
"Heeey sis..." Luna sang sheepishly, with a big cheesy grin on her face as she opened the door a slight bit and peered in. "You getting better?"
Celestia was lying on her queen-sized bed, her left back leg in a thick cast and suspended from the ceiling. Half her face was covered in bandages, and so were her wings and parts of her front legs. Her usually vibrant and colorful mane was much less vibrant and colorful today.
"No." She said in reply to Luna's hopeful question, her horn glowing as she lowered a piece of paper from her eyes with a levitation spell.
Luna's grin turned to something uncertain as she saw her sister's blank and angry face.
"Soooo..." She mumbled. "What ya read'n?"
"Complaints." Celestia said, and with a flutter of paper brought the sheet back up to her eyes. "Need to account for about three hundred broken windows in the local area because of an 'unidentified shockwave', and need to repair the castle. About twelve k altogether."
"Nothing we can't repay in taxes.... Right?" Luna tried, but the angry glare she got from her sister was none less furious than that of the burning sun's. "Alright... Uh.... How's Cadence?"
"Resting." Celestia replied, slightly muffled by the bandages. "That's what she tells me anyways. I can't be so sure... I keep hearing these continuos banging noises next door though."
"Has Shining Armor been over recently?"
"It's the bloody Easter holidays. He's off duty for the time being. Why-" then realization dawned on what little still showed through her bandaged face. "Ooh..... Right."
"Yeah. So... I'll just be leaving you to your rest... And... Expenses..." Luna said, gingerly backing out the door.
"Hold it Luna-" Celestia said, and Luna froze. "You were responsible for all the damage caused. You should be paying for all this."
"But I don't have any money left after that shopping spree at comic con!" Luna wailed.
"I know." Celestia said matter of factly. "That's why you have two options. Either sell all your video games(which should be just enough to compensate that twelve thousand bits), or..."
"Or...?" Luna asked hopefully.
"You could do some labour work."
"I'll pick the labour." Luna said immediately.
"You sure? I haven't gone into the details yet-"
"Nothing touches my video games." Luna said definitely.
"Alright then..." Celestia sighed, and face-hoofed. Although it hurt, it was a gesture she simply had to add in. "We're running out of boulders to randomly throw into Ponyville and halt construction there... So, I need you to go to the moon and mine me some more."
Later that day as the sun went down Twilight Sparkle noticed the craters on the moon had once again formed a familiar figure....