The players were given a five-minute break for the magic to reset the simulation room. During that time, a few of the people had started to mingle. Twilight had moved next to Timber and the two were enjoying a discussion on local flora. Fluttershy had taken the chance to sample some of Vinyl’s music. She knew she wasn’t a fan, but she wanted to be nice.
During this time, Sonata turned to Aria. “What do you think happened in there?”
“What are you talking about?” Aria replied, her voice ripe with annoyance, “We saw everything that happened on the screens.”
“That’s not what I meant. We didn’t hear what was going on in there and something happened between Adagio and that guy… what was his name?”
“Flash.”
“Right! Anyway, we say some kind of fight, but they made up and everything seemed to work out. Not to mention she saved him during the fight at the end! And she decided to give me her prize if she won? Adagio’s never done stuff like that before.”
“You complaining?”
“No… Not necessarily. But it’s weird, right?”
“Yeah. I guess it is. So what?”
“It’s just… I’m not sure what to think about it. Do you think this is working? That she made a friend?”
“I really don’t care.”
“You never do…”
Grimoire clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay… next up will be…” Grimoire looked at his hologram. “Team 2: Rarity, Pinkie, Luna, and Aria. Step up and get your kits.”
“Weee!” Pinkie shot up toward the platform. She bounced up and down, waiting for the kit to arrive.
“Pinkie… Please stop bouncing. You need to stand still for the scanner to work.
“Okie doki loki!” Pinkie stopped bouncing and the symbol appeared above her head at last. The symbol began to spin until it landed on a gear-like symbol. “Ooh! What’s that one?” Her attire shifted to an armored, engineer-like style with on arm replaced with a claw similar to the gear symbol. Her hair was tied in a knot that wrapped over her shoulders, almost like a necklace.
“You’ve been granted the kit of Torbjorn Lindolm, master engineer and founding member of the Overwatch task force. You specialize in area control with your turret and defense by giving your teammates armor created from collected scrap.”
Pinkie giggled. “That sounds fun~!”
Grimoire rolled his eyes. “Next.”
The next one to stand up was Rarity. “I suppose I’ll go next. I do hope I get something fabulous.” Her symbol spun and landed on a stylized grinning bunny. Rarity soon found herself in a peach and purple body suit akin to a flight suit. At her side was a plasma pistol. Rarity began to examine the attire. “How quaint. It’s actually very comfortable but I feel it isn’t quite as fabulous as I was hoping.”
“You were granted the kit of Hana Song, better known as D.Va.”
“A diva?” She placed her hand to her chest in insult. “How dare!”
“No. Not a diva. D-period-V-a. D.Va. She’s a professional gamer turned mech pilot and movie star.”
“A movie star, you say?”
“Also… your primary weapon is… that.” He pointed behind her. Sitting in the room was a large, white mechanized walker. “That is your weapon. The White Bunny, a mech created by the Mobilized Exo-Force of the Korean Army.”
“Oh my.”
“You’re a tank type with the focus on fire power and defense when needed.”
Rarity walked over and found herself deep in thought, new ideas for a dress line coming to mind.
“Next up.”
Vice Principal Luna was the third to make her way to the platform. Her symbol spun, landing on a pair of twisting dragons. Luna’s normal attire shifted to a padded, hunter’s attire. Her dark hair hidden beneath a white wolf pelt. A bow and quiver of arrows were on her back as well.
“You’ve been given the kit of Hanzo Shimada, eldest son of the Shimada. Specifically, the Okami variant. You are the sniper and master of the bow. With a single shot and not effective close-range alternative, you must be warry of your surroundings.” As Luna moved to the side he turned back to the group. “Next.” After a few seconds, she raised an eyebrow. “Aria?”
Said former siren was sleeping in her chair.
“Of course…” He walked over toward Aria and Vinyl tossed him her headphones as he passed. Grimoire lined the headphones up on Aria’s ears and counted down, pointing to Vinyl as a signal.
One burst of a bass drop later, Aria jumped from her chair and fell onto the floor. “What the hell?!”
“Wakey wakey~” Grimoire smiled and helped her up. “It’s your turn.” Grimoire tossed Vinyl her headphones back.
“Prick…” Aria walked over to the platform and waited for the symbol to select something for her. It eventually landed on a biohazard symbol. Her style shifted to a long, dark purple coat with a scientific bend.
“You’ve been given the power of Moira O’Deorain, a controversial scientist of dubious ethical standards. With your left hand, you can heal your allies. With your right, you drain that life force from your enemies.”
Aria smirked hearing that, “Sounds good to me.”
Grimoire pushed a button and sent them on to their game.
\/
The group’s pod opened, and they found themselves in a futuristic city. Beyond the bounds of city was an expansive grassland. There were a number of banners and posters advertising a museum exhibit with someone named Efi.
Welcome to Numbani.
“Woah! This is awesome!” Pinkie jumped up in excitement.
Round 1: Begin.
As the robotic wave began, the group started to get a feel for their powers. Aria primarily focused on hurting as many robots as she could before begrudgingly healing her team. Pinkie found out how to set up her turret, keeping it at high HP while attacking with her molten gun. Rarity… had some difficulties. It took her time to adjust to her position and how her mech actually worked. She was the slowest of the group to learn how to work her abilities, but she got their eventually.
Luna, on the other hand, was a natural with her bow. Head shot after head shot, she broke the wave with little effort.
“Oh wow!” Pinkie jumped over toward her. “You’re really good!”
“Thank you. Archery was always a favorite hobby of mine. And this is certainly easier than in real life. Of course,” she smiled, “I can’t usually do something like this in life either.” She readied an arrow and it began to glow. “Okami yo, waga teki wo kurae!” From her arrow, a pair of energy wolves erupted from the air and began to twist around one another. The wolves broke the robotic presence in front of Luna.
A few minutes later, the round ended and everyone had gotten better with their abilities. They were set to start the next round when something odd happened.
R-r-r-round 1: C-c-complete.
“What’s going on?” Pinkie looked up to the sky, as if it would answer her.
Round- Round- Round- 2… Com…en…sing… Daisy. Daisy…
The group found themselves outside the game and back in the main room.
Grimoire was fiddling with a console to the side shouting to himself. “No! No! No! NO! Damn it!”
“What’s going on?” Sunset walked over, placing a hand on his shoulder.
Vinyl raised an eyebrow at this.
Grimoire sighed. “Seems I overestimated the machine’s abilities…”
“So, we just have to wait longer. That should be fine.” Luna took the events in stride.
“Not quite…”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” He pressed a button to shut the system down for recharge only to have it spark and break a screen.
“Yikes.” Rainbow jumped at a realization. “Aw man! We won’t get our second chance!”
“Well, this sucks.” Timber sighed, but didn’t seem too terribly affected. He would have enjoyed the game and getting to play it with Twilight, but he was able to go with the flow.
Grimoire tried to fix the machine for around half an hour, getting Sunset and Vinyl to help him. Sunset understood the magical systems and tried to get things to work. However, she was surprised to see Vinyl helping. It was odd. Vinyl seemed to be keeping up with the technical side of the magic console. Sunset wasn’t sure how to take that. She knew Vinyl had enough technical knowledge to fix her headphones or DJ deck, but not about any magical tech.
Thirty minutes of sparks and magical feedback later, Grimoire hit his head on the console in defeat. He took a deep breath and turned to the remaining group. “So… I’m sorry about this… but the machine is shot and it’s not getting fixed any time soon.”
“So, what do we do about the prize?” Aria asked with a hint of disappointed anger.
“Well… We can either reconvene and you’ll all have to start over, whenever that would be… Or I can go with plan B and hand them out to one person per team. It would have been the MVP, but one team didn’t get to go. So…”
“One per team is fine.” Aria leaned back in her chair. “I don’t feel like coming back here anyway.”
Grimoire shook his head and opened the issue to the group. They ultimately decided on the one per team as a fair way to decide the issue. “Okay,” Grimoire pulled out a note pad and a pen, “Who’s getting the stuff?”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie jumped up and down with her hand raised.
“Yes, Pinkie?”
“I vote to give our teams prize thing to Vice Principal Luna!”
“Just trying to butter up your teacher…” Luna was about to give the prize back, but was cut off.
“You said you liked archery, right? So why not take it?!”
“Well, what about your friends?”
Rarity was sketching something down, “I can make my own suit if I want. But I think I’d prefer to put my own spin on it.”
Aria waved from her chair, “I really don’t care.”
Pinkie smiled, “There you go!”
Luna sighed and smiled. “Alright then. I guess I accept.”
Grimoire wrote something down and tore the paper. He placed it on the table and it began to shift into a parcel. “There you go. One Okami attire for the Vice Principal. Wear it in good health.”
Luna wasn’t sure how that just worked, so she opened the parcel to see what’s actually in the box, and it was indeed the attire she wore in the game. It was an amazing material and felt very comfortable. “Impressive.”
Grimoire prepared the next page. “Okay, who gets it from Team 4?”
Thing was, there was only two members of that team still there. Fluttershy made it clear that she didn’t want the Reaper’s attire. Vinyl shrugged in indifference.
“Okay… I guess Vinyl gets this one.” He created another parcel and handed it to Vinyl. “Now, Team 3.”
Sonata thought a moment before answering. “I’m okay without the costume.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m good!”
“Alright then. That leaves Rainbow with Widowmaker, AJ with McCree, and Big Mac with Mei.”
Rainbow chuckled a little. “I’ll pass. That’s not really my style.”
AJ shrugged. “I’m okay with giving the costume to Big Mac. He needs a new coat anyway.”
Grimoire created another parcel and passed it to Big Mac. “Your new coat. Good for subzero temperatures too negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit.”
“Thank you.” Big Mac opened the parcel and even found a backpack designed like the tank on the character’s back, complete with detachable robotic drone.
“Not bad there, Big Mac.” AJ let out an impressed whistle.
Grimoire turned to the remaining four. “Now… whoever gets it, I’ll have to run a randomizer again for your kit. So… who wants the prize?”
Lyra thought for a while. “I don’t know… I’m not sure this stuff is for me, really.”
Twilight and Timber were distracted in each other’s company.
Grimoire rolled his eyes and turned to Sunset. “Well? What do you say?”
Sunset looked over to the two and back to Grimoire. “Okay. I’ll take it.”
“Alright then.” Grimoire used his paper to spoof the randomizer system. The symbol appeared, showing the number 76. The parcel appeared and he handed it to Sunset. “You’ve been given the kit of Soldier:76. Formerly known as Jack Morrison. Once the leader of the Overwatch strike team, Soldier: 76 is now a vigilante and international criminal. Still working to make the world a better place, but working outside the law.”
Sunset smiled and took the package. She opened it to reveal a long, blue coat with matching armor.
Grimoire looked over her shoulder. “Looks like you got the Strike Commander Morrison version.” Grimoire clapped his hands again, “I want to thank you all for coming. I’m sorry not all of you got the chance to play. I’ll do what I can, if we ever decide to do something like this again, to fix the issues so everyone gets a chance. Seriously, I am very sorry about that.”
Lyra stood and smiled. “It’s fine. Anyway, I’ll see you guys at school on Monday.”
The groups started to leave after that. Twilight and Timber left to go on an impromptu date (Timber’s idea). Sonata and Rainbow Dash left with Applejack, showing the progress made even if it was minimal. Aria and Lyra left on their own in two separate directions. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie left as a group as well.
Sunset was about to leave before she saw Vinyl still sitting in the tent, “Vinyl? It’s time to go.”
Vinyl stretched and gave a motion that said I know that, but she didn’t move.
“Um… Then why are you…?”
“Okay. This machine turned out to be a bust…” Grimoire was only paying partial attention to the world around him, likely unaware Sunset was still there. “Still, some new friends were made and the barriers for others are breaking down. So, good work all around I think. Should probably get back to Equestria for a while, though. Vinyl you ready to… Sunset? You’re still here?”
“Wait. You’re taking Vinyl to Equestria? Why?”
“Um… She lives there.”
“Oh. Oh… Okay. Hold on. You brought her from Equestria to play this game?”
“Octavia, her roommate, said it was better than leaving her alone at their home and Vinyl said she had nothing better to do.”
“That makes sense… I guess. Anyway, I’ll see you next time.” Sunset walked off, parcel in tow under her arm.
Vinyl looked over the back of her chair toward Grimoire.
“What’s with the look?”
Vinyl didn’t say anything, but was able to convey her words.
“She’s an old classmate. Remember, making friends isn’t exactly easy for me, but what friends I do make I stick with for as long as possible.” Grimoire pulled the plug and the tent returned to its normal interior. “Now, let’s get moving.”
Vinyl stood up and walked out with Grimoire.
The tent behind them shrunk into a small satchel, which Grimoire picked up before they walked over to the portal. Grimoire and Vinyl had returned to Equestria.
\/
An hour after Grimoire and Vinyl left and a few miles down the road, Sonata and Rainbow were watching an old wrestling tape Sonata kept from the heyday of her favorite wrestler, Commander Solaris. In the middle of a less impressive match, Sonata turned to Rainbow, “Do you think the game really worked? You know, helping everyone become friends?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow was uncharacteristically melancholy about the issue. “AJ is willing to give you the chance at least, and that’s improvement. I don’t know what will happen next, but at least we have the chance to patch things up with everyone.”
“I guess that’s all we can ask for.”
“Still kind of stinks about the machine breaking down.”
“Yeah. No kidding.” Sonata looked back to the recording. “Oh! This is a great part!”
The two enjoyed the remainder of their day watching old wrestling matches.