Pale moonlight drifted through a window, illuminating a large and somewhat messy room. Several posters were strewn upon the walls, depicting everything from famous video game characters to popular bands. A dark blue shag carpet could be seen, just barely sticking out in the sea of clutter and mess. The ocean of empty junk food bags and half written papers seemed to crawl up the furniture and walls.
A massive crescent moon themed bed took up most of the room, it’s radiant light keeping the hungry junk ocean at bay. An old oak desk sat in the opposite corner of the room, its surface dominated by an old CRT monitor. A tower sat nearby, with the accompanying mouse and keyboard wired into it.
In the middle of the room sat a large couch, which faced a somewhat new TV on a wooden coffee table. Several gaming consoles were laid in front or atop the coffee table. A plastic shelf sat next to the TV, which contained a veritable library of games, as well as pretty much every gaming tool one could imagine, including the controllers themselves.
Muffled hoofsteps could be heard behind the heavy oak door of the room, before it was opened, revealing Luna, carrying a massive brown bag. The alicorn grunted, rolling the large burlap sack off her shoulders, before chucking it with her magic onto the couch. The entire couch seemed to deflate a little.
Luna sighed, stretching her worn out shoulders. Once she had closed the door, she flapped her large, magnificent wings, attempting to land on the moon themed sofa.
She promptly face-planted onto its divine cushions, and let out a massive sigh, curling up into a small ball of alicorn.
At the sound of Luna’s fall, a small furry creature wearily poked it's head out from under the rooms bed. It waddled over to the newly formed mound of ruffled feathers and content grunts.
The creature poked the moon princess, to which she slowly rolled over to see it. “Not now, Tiberius. The small quest to acquire food from the kitchen has turned into a veritable epic. The confusion of the caterers and chefs was enough to tire me out, let alone their horror when I grabbed what I needed.” She wearily said, her eyes closing once more.
The small opossum prodded her once more, pointing at the grandfather clock hidden in the corner of the room. Luna stared at it with a blank expression for several seconds, before her eyes went wide, and she scrambled to get up.
“Argh! I almost forgot!” She looked down to the little opossum to thank him, but he was already gone. As she made her way to her desk, a small head poked out of the sack, carrying a bag of chips in its mouth.
Luna turned the computer on, giving the old equipment its time to properly start up. The moment her screen showed her standard wallpaper, she rapidly logged on to the voice chat that the lunar guards had set up.
“Hey everypony, sorry I’m late. Had to get some preparations done.”
A sassy voice came in through her headphones. “Oh hey, look who’s here!” She could practically hear the smirk as the voice spoke. “I was starting to think that you already feel asleep on us.”
Another voice played, this one gruff. “I mean no offence princess, but a good general is always the first on the battlefield.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s enough Withering Crystal and Rolling Blow.” She adopted a playful tone. “Do you two want to lose your ranking?”
Crystal chuckled. “Oh, going for the low blow already? I figured you’d save that for when things got serious.”
Luna chuckled herself. It was nice to be able to have a casual conversation now and then. Most guards would be horrified if they heard their peers talking to a princess like this, but they didn’t seem to realize just how boring being treated like royalty actually was. Besides, most of the ponies currently on the channel were used to this kind of talk, mainly due to hanging out with Luna, more often than even Celestia did.
The moon princess cleared her throat, looking at the list of ponies in the channel. “Alright, it seems like everypony is here, other than… Star Shade. Anypony know where he is?”
Several confused mutterings played in Luna’s ears, and she sighed. “Great so that means we’re down one.” She looked to the grandfather clock. “Well, we still have an hour before our first match, and we still have enough ponies to hit the max on the number of players on one team. For now, let’s do some training before we get started.”
Thirteen voices grunted their confirmations, and Luna loaded up the game. After a few logos of various game developers, the screen finally revealed the main menu. The title 'Knights with Guns 3' was held in the center of the screen, with the various menu options just below it. Behind the title and options, one could see a small battle being held. Luna thought it was cool how the game loaded up a random game in progress to use as the main menus background.
Just when she was about to start up the private server, a monotone female voice could be heard. “A user has joined your call”. As soon as the electronic voice stopped, a more biological one piped up.
“Sorry I’m late everypony! Had to prepare some stuff for the game.”
Crystal made an over-exaggerated gasp. “That was the same excuse that Luna made! Is there something you two aren’t telling us~?”
Luna blushed, and glared in the general direction of her bed when she heard Tiberius laugh.
Star Shade stammered on his end as Luna turned her glare to her screen. “We did no such thing Crystal! And remember, our voices will not only heard live, but also recorded for later. Let’s keep things PG, okay?”
A playful chuckle whisked past Luna’s ears. “No promises~!”
The dark coated alicorn sighed. “Alright, I’m starting the server. The password is 'spearhead'. Everypony join in when you’re ready. And just as a heads up, the enemy AI difficulty has been set to ultra hard.”
Once Luna and everypony else was in, the character selection screen was brought up, showing a roster of about thirty different characters. Ten ponies chose their usual character, while the rest were switched to spectator mode. With characters picked, they then selected a loadout that suited their playing style, and picked a skill tree to allot a few points into.
Once everything was settled, and everyone clicked the ready button, the screen switched over to a view of their specific character in first person. The announcer shouted out the countdown as it ticked down to zero. And with that, the game began.
Luna opened up her map, and began to shout orders into her mic. “Alright, Winged Blade, Star Shade and Withering Crystal, head on over to each of the control points and see how many are on each. Those of you with a defending class, hunker down and defend the main point. Everypony else, spread out.”
As each pony went their respective way, Luna rushed over to the middle point, map out. She smirked when several red blips appeared close by. As the map was stowed, a large sparkling claymore was pulled out of its sheath. Her smirk deepened as an enemy AI appeared in front of her. She darkly chuckled.
“And so the game begins…”
Once they wiped the floor with the enemy AI team, the group got everything set up for their first official match. The first few matches would be placement matches, so even if they failed one match, they could still make a comeback and get into the next part of the tournament.
Luna placed a few different snacks and drinks near her desk, sighing at the limited selection. Her brow furrowed when she heard a distinct crunching sound, and she glared at Tiberius. The little opossum managed to eat his way through almost half the bag already, which was impressive, considering how heavy the thing was.
Luna watched him eat, noting how distended his stomach was. He had gotten so large that he looked more like an overgrown fuzzball than an actual creature. She chuckled at the thought of him trying to move about, having to drag his overgrown belly across the floor. With her anger appeased for now, she turned back to her computer, putting on her headset.
“Alright, the announcements are in thirty minutes, are you all prepared for your first match? Do you have everything you need?”
Everypony stated their affirmations, and Luna nodded. “Alright, lets hop onto the official channel, and wait.”
She opened the private channel that was given to all contestants, entering the required password, and looked at the list of names. She winced. There were a surprisingly large amount of names, and considering how each team was made of at least ten ponies, there had to be at least twenty different teams competing.
With voice chat off, most of the contestants in the channel used the chat log to talk to each other. Even with Luna just now getting in, the chat log had already been filled to the top.
XxshadowedgamerxX: hey guys, do you think that this year will be as intense as last year’s tournament?
Pewdiepone: The hay are you talking about? Of course it is! If anything, this year will be even more intense with all these new teams competing.
Germa874: wait what
_ratS: This year will be much more enjoyable with all of these teams competing. Last year, barely anypony showed up.
Merkiplied: Whatever they’re going to do this year will be awesome either way. I had a blast last year; doubt that this one will be any different!
PonTron: ECH
Luna began to ignore the chat, and instead, began to wait. Twenty minutes, and the first games in the entire tournaments would begin. Twenty minutes, and Luna’s team would be given a challenge that, if surpassed, would allow them to move just that closer to being declared the winners.
The princess’s headphones crackled, causing Luna to look at the clock. Five minutes. A voice began to speak, addressing the ponies within the channel.
“Alright, we’re just getting everything over here finished up. In five minutes, we will state a few different rules, as well as make a few announcements. Once that is over, if your team is competing, you and the rest of your team will be receiving the password for a private server as well as a voice channel. Hop on, we’ll say a few things, and then the two teams will battle.”
The voice crackled slightly. “And remember, anything you say in the voice channel will be live and recorded, so keep the cursing to a minimum; ponies of all ages will be watching.”
And with that, the voice was gone. The chat exploded with activity, names and messages whizzing by faster than Luna could read them. She steeled her nerves, counting down the seconds until the official announcements.
Sure enough, soon after it passed zero, the voice of an over-enthusiastic stallion burst through the din of silence.
“Goooood evening everypony! Today is the first day of our second annual 'Knights with Guns 3' official tournament! Now since this is a relatively new thing for most ponies, we will be explaining the basics.”
The sound of paper shuffling could be heard. “Most eSport tournaments require every team that is to be competing to all be in one location, using on-sight computers. Not only that, but most tournaments require some prerequisite for your team to get on and officially be labeled ‘professional’.”
“But this tournament is quite different! Not only is anypony allowed to get in just so long as they have a team, but you don’t have to be on-site anymore! This is one of the first, if not, THE first tournament to be held completely online.”
The voice paused for several seconds before continuing. “Unfortunately, this openness comes with a few downsides. Since this specific type of tournament has gotten so popular, there are quite a few teams competing, meaning we will have to extend the length of the tournament to an entire week, with matches held during both the day, and the night.”
Luna sighed, a frown tugging at her muzzle. She was quite unhappy with the fact that this tournament was considered unprofessional. Unfortunately, with Luna only just now returning from the moon a few years ago, and this tournament being the only real test of her skill, most would not want her on their teams. Plus, the whole nightmare moon was still something on some ponies minds, with Ponyville the only real place where she was somewhat accepted.
“So, with that all out of the way, we can now explain what the prize for having your team win will be!”
Luna’s attention was immediately brought back to the voice.
"The prize for this year’s tournament will be a shared two thousand bits between the whole of your team, as well as having every member in your team recommended to the official Equestria video game league!”
“And with all of that out of the way, it is time to begin! And while this is indeed a serious competition, just remember: have fun!”
A click played in Luna’s headphones, and the voice disappeared like the last. With her mood having done a complete 180, and having her determination brought back, she cracked her neck, stretching out some muscles as she smirked at the screen.
Soon, a schedule of the teams competing popped up on the screen. Luna looked to the teams currently fighting, which caused her smirk to vanish. Her team wasn’t set to play for another five hours.
The moon princess groaned, before slamming her face into her keyboard.