//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Miles Away // by Bucket of Skies //------------------------------// Chapter 3 Although I was in a hurry getting back to my house to not keep PJ waiting, I still liked to take in the atmosphere of the other ponies around me. It sounds crazy coming from some somewhat antisocial unicorn with public anxiety, but it is true. As I was trotting at a fast pace while still looking around to take in the mellowed out atmosphere of New Saddle, a certain group of colts were playing with a ball. Out of all of them, there was one who had kind of stood out. As I glanced over to observe, It had caught my attention that the colt that stood out wasn’t a colt at all. He was instead a smaller griffin. At first, I was in total shock, “A group of colts in Hoovesiana playing with a griffin? Are we now finally coming to our senses that we are the same?”, I thought to myself. Almost like clockwork, as soon as I had that thought in my head, the group of colts had ran in the other direction with the ball leaving the small griffin alone. I felt sympathy for the griffin, mostly because I had felt what the small griffin had felt: a feeling of abandonment from others. I could have went over to comfort him, but I had to leave to get a shot at the golden fork. I can’t miss this shot, not after about a whole month of working for it. Though the trot felt like a whole eternity, I had gotten home in about 10 minutes, 15 minutes faster than I usually take to get home. I used my magic to throw the door open to get in the house as quick as I possibly could. Shutting the door behind me, I threw my paycheck from the bakery on the table and ran to my PC. Hitting the power button frantically, I had managed to hit my head on the desk kind of hard. I rubbed my head to make sure I hadn’t done any damage to it. Thankfully I wasn’t seeing double or seeing some fairy telling me the world is going end in about a day. Shaking the mouse, I checked the time to make sure I wasn’t too late. I was relieved to say that the time had read 4:26. “Perfect, just in time.”, I say to myself as I sit down in my chair signing in to my Smoke profile. I figured that PJ would patiently be waiting for me to join his game. I was mistaken, as I had over 200 notifications of new messages from PJ. This was out of the ordinary of PJ, usually he would leave around 10 or 15 messages saying for me to hurry up. Clicking the notification icon, the avalanche of messages nearly crushed me. Though I couldn’t read through all of them, I could read the more recently sent ones sent when I had logged on. Prophecy Jail (In Game: SF2) : GET YOUR ASS ON NOW He didn’t need to tell me twice. I launched up SF2 then launched up Kaos. Kaos was a app similar to Smoke, the only difference being that it is directly meant for talking to other users in game. It makes it ten times easier than typing in game to talk to other players. Also, It can also be used to talk to only your friends and nopony else. As I waited for the game and Kaos to load, I messaged PJ to ask what is wrong. Lotus (In Game: SF2) : Hey I’m on finally. What happened? Did some other pony find the fork? Prophecy Jail (In Game: SF2) : NO BUT IF YOU DON'T HURRY THE FUCK UP YES SOME OTHER PONY WILL. Lotus (In Game: SF2) : Ok Ok, Sweet celestia. What happened while I was gone? Prophecy Jail (In Game: SF2) : I fucked up. I fucked up badly. Lotus (In Game: SF2) : Fucked up? Prophecy Jail (In Game: SF2) : While I was waiting for you, I was looking around the lodge. In that time, some clueless friendly wouldn’t fuck off and figured out that the lodge where the golden frying pan was. Friendlies were players in the game who would not kill or hurt players. They like to follow players around and give them health. In a casual setting, it is actually fine, despite them getting in the way of a situation. But in a situation where we are trying to keep a certain area secret, it is super stressful and annoying. Lotus (In Game: SF2) : Oh Shit. So that means that other ponies are gonna try to get the golden fork now. Prophecy Jail (In Game: SF2) : Yeah, it’s gonna be a shit show. So be ready when you join in. Log into Kaos, so this can be easier to talk Lotus (In Game: SF2) : Ok. With that, I quickly logged into Kaos and rang up a call with PJ. Although I had never met PJ personally, he sounds rather chill. Like somepony that you could sit on a couch and watch tv with. As the calling tone in Kaos finally came to a close, I got to hear the sound of the chillest pony screaming at me. “Hey, can you hear me?”, PJ screamed to me nearly clipping his audio. “Ow, Dammit PJ! I may be a good SF2 player, but Sweet Celestia my ears are not built for being destroyed”, I say in response. “Sorry, but I’m a little on edge the fact I nearly gave up the secret to the golden fork”, PJ says with a slightly self loathing sound. “Hey. Don’t blame yourself, at least they didn’t find the other part of the puzzle”, I say reassuringly. I heard a quick sigh from PJ, followed by the response,” You're right, but how long until they find that other part Lotus, how long until our chance at 10,000 dollars is gone?” This caused a bit of awkward silence between me and PJ until I joined in his session as we were loading. “So what’s the plan”, I ask breaking the silence between us. “Well, I figured since now every player knows about the spot, I figured that the best option would be to go more offensive with you as a stunt merc and me a healer”, PJ says finally calming down. PJ is a fairly decent Healer main, but his main problem is his nerves playing the class. He would be the type of pony to back out of a push in fear of being killed in game. That has led to many failed attempts to win a round and even defend against pushing players. “You sure you want to do that, you promise not to give up on a push to take over the area?”, I ask with a more questioning tone. “Yeah, of course I won’t. This is 10,000 dollars we are talking about. Of course I’m not gonna back down”, PJ says with a more serious voice. “Ok, but if we lose-”, I say before I’m cut off by PJ. “We won’t”, he says with a very serious voice. I could tell that this means the world to PJ; That this could destroy him if we don’t get this. “Ok, so kind of to say the plan over again, go in, rush the first part of the puzzle, you activate it, I jump the place that opens and we split the 10,000 dollar to celebrate being the first duo to work together to find the fork”, I say to PJ as I click ready on the loading screen. “Pretty much the gist of what I said, let’s do this shit”, PJ says while also readying up after me. I could kind of feel a little bit of sweat drip down from my forehead. Along with this, I felt a little bit of nervousness in my body waiting for the game to load. What If somehow while we push I fuck up and miss a shot and get hit by the bullshit known as “random max damage”. Random Max Damage (Commonly referred as RMD) was a glitch in the game that the devs had never fixed, something about giving players a “fair and balanced” game mechanic. Essentially the glitch would randomly fire off a shot from a rifle, rocket, or grenade that does insane amounts of damage. It could even take out an over healed Big Boss class, a class with the largest health in the game especially when over healed, like it is nothing. As I could have one last “what if” thought, the level loaded up and my fear was all of a sudden gone. “Let’s do this”, I think to myself before choosing the Stunt Merc class. My loadout for the class was a fairly standard loadout for a casual player, one stock grenade launcher, one jump launcher, and stock melee weapon. It is a basic loadout for basic needs, or so you think? Like I said before, I use the Stunt Merc class to jump around the map rushing players. The best secondary to use is the one that nopony ever uses: The Jump Launcher. It is widely hated because it does no damage, and to other players who don’t know how to use it say that it is pointless in a game where you kill players. To that I say, "Fuck You", to the haters, cause it has helped me rank up to over 3,255 kills. Loading into the game, the spawn room contains the same group of classes I usually run into, 1 clueless ShapeShifter, 1 Big Boss, 5 Marksman who probably can’t aim, and then one Healer who unfortunately will be the only one helping me. I noticed he had on a different hat than the one he had before, before it was similar to a wizards hat. Now this one was more like a crown to some medieval kingdom. “When did you change your hat? I had never seen you wear that hat on your Healer loadout before”, I ask PJ. “I had gotten that yesterday while you were asleep for the night, you missed out on a good game where I made a bet with another player that I could beat him in a 1v1 match”, PJ says confidently. “Bet you wouldn’t win against me in a 1v1 match as Stunt Merc”, I say with a cocky attitude towards PJ. “Hey, let’s not start an argument right now since we are gonna have to depend on each other working together to make it to the fork. Especially not when we have 30 seconds till the match starts”, PJ says sternly. Although, I jokingly considered that's his way of saying,”Yeah, I know you would destroy me.” But in all seriousness, he was right. We only had a couple of seconds before the spawn doors open and all hell breaks loose. At that moment we stayed silent again to kind of stay focused on the objective of finding the fork. Moments later we got to hear those four sounds to begin the madness “3” “2” “1” “Begin” Then came the alarm sound of the doors opening and a stampede of players rushed out the door to rush the cart, while me and PJ had went the opposite way to the lodge with the button to activate the door to the first part of the quest. PJ was already overhealing me to get me a jump of health in case we take some fire from another player on the other team. With PJ healing me, I could read how much until his “Invulnerability Charge” was charged up. That could be used for charging areas with lots of enemy fire while not dying for about 8 seconds, just enough time to kill the enemies in the room before your charge is back at 0%. PJ’s charge was at 10%. Making our way over to the room, we had taken a couple of scratches from players on the enemy team spotting us by the cart, but they were easily avoidable thanks to my jumping. Taking a little bit of damage was also a good way to build up a charge with PJ, since healing players taking damage speeds up your charge rate by 5%. “We are almost there, be ready for anything”, PJ says as his charge counter read now 63%. As we made it past a building leading up to the lodge, I could hear the sounds of a Big Boss and a DoughColt. That wasn’t a good sign. Especially since the DoughColt fires rockets that the RMD likes to effect the most. “Hey, be ready to charge when we get there, that DoughColt is gonna destroy us if he gets a RMD”, I warn PJ as his charge count had read 75%. “Got it. Don’t go out past that wall leading to the lodge until I give a signal”, PJ says as we approach the final corner of the walkway leading to the lodge. My Stunt Merc and his Healer planted themselves right next to the corner. I sat there waiting for his signal, itching to step out and take them out. “Hold it, Hold it”, PJ says sternly. A bit of sweat was dripping from my horn, to which I wiped away to avoid being distracted. Looking at his charge it read 85%. “PJ, Can we go now”, I ask itching to step out to take out the possible DoughColt and Big Boss. “Not yet, wait till I say the signal”, PJ says. It was at this moment I couldn’t wait any longer. I was so eager to step out and take them out. I had a Healer with 90% charge, why could we not take them out now? So, with what many would call the stupidest move in SF2 history, I stepped out launching a jump bomb to get ready to launch at the enemy. “NO Lotus! What the fuck are you doing?!”, PJ screams at me like I had signed my death warrant. Naturally, I felt a surge of confidence when I peeped around a corner and launched my first grenade at the Big Boss around the corner. Like I had predicted, one Big Boss, one DoughColt. With the two shots I had fired, both of them hit their intended target, taking out the Big Boss in a flash. What had took me by surprise was the enemy Healer that was also around the corner that had popped its charge. At this moment, I saw my life flash before my eyes, Figuratively of course. I had thought I had fucked up the one shot at me and PJ had at getting the golden fork. Then in the next moment, I had this sudden surge of determination in me, like the feeling that I wasn’t going down without a fight. Once the enemy DoughColt had fired one of his rockets, quickly jumped out of the way thanks to the Jump Launcher. I knew I had to try and avoid fire for about 8 seconds, or at least until I could get to PJ in time. My second jump to avoid another wave of rockets from the enemy DoughColt came with a slight delay of damage, taking away about 60 from getting hit by one rocket. By then I had around 105 health. Still a decent amount of health. “I got this, I got this”, I say to myself as I lined up my third jump. As I had feared, the DoughColt had fired a RMD rocket in this sequence. Though the rocket did not hit me, the blast damage took away 75 health, leaving me with 30 health. It was this point when I had landed and taken fall damage, which then took away 15 health leaving me with barely any health left. At this point, I felt like a true goner. I was too far away to be healed in time by PJ, and the Jump Launcher ran out of bombs in the clip. My instincts came in as I switched to my grenade launcher and began panic firing on the now reloading DoughColt. Then, what felt like hours, 8 seconds had past. The charge from the enemy healer had stopped and left me with an open window to fire at. My only chance at killing the other player was getting a RMD with the grenade launcher. I realized that I had nothing to lose if I took the shot and maybe missed my one grenade in the clip or had it be in regular damage. “Please, just this once, do the right thing, RMD”, I think to myself as I close my eyes pressing the fire button. What followed was silence as time slowed down for me But then, what broke the speed of time, was a glint of a glowing pill coming for the DoughColt. BOOM! The lucky RMD pill had hit the target and took out the enemy DoughColt. The explosion from the RMD had also damaged me as well, leaving me with the unbelievable amount of 1 health. I could barely comprehend what had just happened. The situation was so unbelievable, the enemy Healer had run away out of fear. If I could have proof that Princess Celestia may have been watching over me, that would be it. In my moment of shock and awe, PJ had come by to heal me as quick as he could. “You are officially the most stupid, and luckiest player I have seen in the whole game”, the still shocked PJ says followed by,”If we somehow get the fork, I’m going to make this a part of an autobiography as being with the luckiest player in the game.” After about twenty seconds of me remaining silent, I break the silence with a bellow of laughter. “Holy Fuck, that was the luckiest rush against another player I have ever done. I could have just died right there”, I say somewhat hysterically. Once PJ had healed me back to full health, he ran to the opposite way. “Lotus, stand guard here for a little bit, I’m gonna go and activate the button on the other side of the lodge, I’m positive that there should be a door that will open. When it opens, try to jump to the top as fast as you possibly can, we only have around 3 minutes left till the game ends”, PJ says with a bit of uneasiness in his voice. “What about you? What are you gonna do while I’m in there”, I ask as his Healer passes the corner to disappear. “Don’t worry about me, all that matters is you making the jumps to the top of the lodge to get the fork”, PJ says sternly. With only two minutes and thirty seconds left in the match, I knew I could not mess around with these jumps. One wrong movement or placement of a Launch Bomb could throw me off course and make me start from the bottom of the lodge. Like I said before, this could devastate PJ if somehow I fucked up a jump or take too long and not get the fork. Sweet Celestia, I had a huge weight on my shoulder that I had to hold up. As I was dealing with the slight anxiety, I saw the door of the lodge open up with a loud bell ring warning players that there were two minutes left in the game. “ Did it open?”, PJ asked me. “Yeah, a door opened. I’m going in right now”, I say as I began moving into the lodge. “Ok, you got this Lotus, I know you do”, PJ says with a confident voice. To which my response was,“Hey, please don’t say anything to me, I need to stay focused on my jumps.” Much like Daring Doo stepping into the tomb, I felt a surge of uneasiness. Like a feeling that this doesn’t feel right. In the opening of the lodge, it was a small, very low lit hallway leading to a open door. Running to the end of the hallway, the room that followed contained a spiraled set of walls leading to the top of the lodge. “Really clever game devs. Your gonna have to really make me strafe jump that high up to reach the 10,000 dollar prize”, I think to myself as a began to fire my first Jump Bomb. Stepping off the Jump bomb launching into the air, I hear the sound of the one minute warning letting me know I could not fuck up. Approaching the wall, I fired my second Jump bomb to prepare for strafing in the other direction. My Stunt Merc launched into the other direction as I turned to the other direction to prepare for my last jump. This is the one that had to count. If I missed this one, I would have to start from the bottom and try again, wasting more time and risking not making it in time. Making it to the third point where I launched my last Jump bomb, I detonated it in time to launch up to the platform up on the top of the lodge. There, lied a platform. That platform was wide, and had a small walkway. Then there it was, sitting there waiting to be claimed: The Golden Fork. I could almost taste victory moving towards the platform Then, by some weird instance In the matter of 2 seconds. My momentum had stopped. I felt a surge of confusion when I was falling to the bottom of the lodge. “What the fuck? What the actual fuck”, I ask myself as I hit the ground. I needed to be sure that I didn’t make a mistake. I did the series of jumps again and made it to the top once again. I made sure that I didn’t clip the bottom of the ledge jumping up there. It was a clear jump to the top, but for an un-fucking-believable reason, I hit a wall. The devs put an invisible wall right there at the top where the fork was. Was this some kind of cruel joke? Did the devs accidentally make an April Fools day joke? No, this couldn’t be. I kept jumping frantically hoping that somehow I would glitch through the apparent invisible wall blocking me from getting the 10,000 dollar prize. With every attempt I made, they all ended in failure. With the pure shock taking over, I began to breathe heavily in the mic as the clock was now counting down from 10 seconds. There was no way I could possibly get the Fork. I could feel that all the work me and PJ had done would now be doubled, due to us having to figure out how the fuck to get past the invisible wall. Then came the four sounds that ultimately devastated me and PJ’s hard work. “3” “2” “1” “Match over, blue wins”.