//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: Miles Away 
// by Bucket of Skies 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 4

“What the fuck do you mean that there was no way to get to it”, PJ says angrily after me explaining to him why I didn’t have the fork of our dreams. 
“I told you this already. When I had jumped up to the platform where the fork was, the devs put in an invisible wall that blocked me from getting it”, I explained to PJ yet again to try to get him to understand that we have been doing it wrong all this month.
This was a very tense moment between the two of us, especially since one of us was dead set on finding the fork to get the money. 
“I refuse to believe what you told me. Not after all this fucking research I did for this.”, PJ said, still with a “extremely pissed off” tone. 
“Look PJ, if you don’t believe me, how about you try yourself as a Stunt Merc?”, I say out of frustration dealing with PJ. 
“Oh and then have you as a shitty Healer who probably will fuck it up for both of us by not sticking to the plan. No thank you”, PJ yells at me.
I had never seen this side of PJ. I have sometimes seen him when he was mad at not being able to cap a point of briefcase, but never to a point of anger that he is in right now.
“Sweet Celestia PJ, you need to calm down, it’s just a push that no player really knows about yet ”, I say out of anger for PJ’s remark to me. 
“Lotus, are you this fucking dense? Players know where to start looking! Eventually some player is gonna find it, and my research I did was all for nothing”,PJ yells again. 
At this point, I was starting to get really pissed off at PJ. 
“Your research? This was our fucking research. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been able to push forward to even get to the first part in the first fucking place”, I yelled back at PJ.
“You know what? Fuck you Lotus, I don’t need your help finding the fork. I can find somepony who is actually motivated to get the fork”, PJ finally says in anger.
“Fine, I don’t need the money anyway, you can waste your time going insane with the lodge”, I say out of disgust before saying,”Good luck with ‘your’ research being put in test.”
I had left the call with and quit the game. I put my hooves over my eyes while breathing out heavily to relieve a little bit of the stress I had from that whole situation. I looked over to the clock that read 5:24. Still was a little early in the evening, but after that situation, it felt like midnight. I stood up from my chair to look at the stuff I had thrown on the table earlier in a rush. On the table was my uniform, which now had a slight stench of sweat from trying to rush home, and the paycheck. I used my magic to throw the uniform in a basket of other clothes that needed to be washed.  I picked up the check and noticed it had something else written on the back of it. “If I don’t see anything with your name on the art trot submission, This check is bouncing~ PC”, the back of the check read. Damn, if that is not somepony who is a good motivator, I don’t know who is. 
Nonetheless, I knew that I had to send something so I could get a paycheck from my boss. Moving towards my desk, I use my magic to grab my other art notebook and a pen. Sitting down, I got to it, drawing whatever I felt would portray what I felt in that moment. Particularly, more of an angry, distraught feeling on the paper. It was not very neat, in fact it was kinda messy. Not like messy being some little colt drawing, but more like a messy room of some teenage mare.
With drawing, I always feel I lose myself in the moment when I really start to work on something. The world kind of goes silent for me with only the sounds of my pen or pencil scratching the paper creating art. Another funny thing with me making art is that time also seems to speed up for me. When I had began drawing, the time had read 5:30 PM. Looking up to let my piece of paper have a break from being scratched and marked by my pencil, the clock had now read 7:30 PM. 
“Damn, It felt like I had just sat down and started drawing”, I say to myself as I began to make the last marks on my drawing I was gonna submit. 
I have my self-doubt with all my art, but for some reason I felt this one had a chance. Not like a huge chance, more like a stallion pube hair of a chance of being featured. I guess you could say I have a little bit of what you would call “self hatred” of my works of art. Sadly, that’s always been the way I was ever since I started drawing seriously after both my parents had died. I never had anyone who could push me to be talented like my parents. Apart from Peach Cobbler, but she didn’t count for me at the time.
After saving the work of art I had created in my notebook, I stood up from my chair and went into the bathroom to take a shower for the night. I never knew why, but whenever I take a warm shower in the evening I always calm down. This is coming from the Unicorn in South Hoovesiana, a place that is famous for being the most humid place in all of Equestria. The place has a very high average of cold showers among ponies, for good reason. For me, warm showers felt refreshing, like going to a steamy sauna or drinking a really cold glass of water on the hottest day. Or, if you want to get a lewd mentioning refreshing, like a pissing after you have been jerking off for about 30 minutes. That’s a real good feeling.
Stepping into the warm shower, I began to let the water soak my mane and body. The shower thoughts began as I began to wash my body with a small towel I grabbed with my magic. I started to begin thinking about PJ and why he would be so motivated about a fork in game that he would get to a point where he would tell me to pretty much go fuck myself. I really doubt that he is a shitty pony that is just greedy for the money or maybe the item itself. What if maybe he is looking to go to a college or a new, more sophisticated school? That or he could be using it for somepony else. PJ could be wanting supporting his family, but then again I could be wrong since he never really opened up that much about his personal life. Or, this just in from Velvet gossip headquarters, PJ could be using it to spend on a marefriend he is looking to bone. 
Rinsing my mane from the soap and shampoo, the refreshing feeling came as I felt a cooling sensation running from my scalp to my horn. I let out a sigh of satisfaction as that sensation began to take over my whole body, letting my tail twitch from the feeling. Once the sensation was over, I turned off the water from the shower and began to dry off. Facing the mirror in the bathroom, I was greeted with my face with my damp mane covering my eyes. I was always OCD when it came to my mane, I always was one to constantly fix my mane out of fear of somepony noticing it wasn’t what it looked like. 
Grabbing my comb I kept in the mirror compartment, I fixed my hair into the style I liked. As I finished the style, I said to myself in agreement with my work,”Good, probably gonna fix later but good.”
Coming out of the bathroom, I tossed the now wet towels into the basket of dirty clothes. Seeing the sun finally go down out of my window finally let me know that it was time to kind of wind down for the night. Not like as in go to bed, whatever that means. I usually like to browse stuff on OurTube to see what’s recently been uploaded, but at the same time I felt like playing something other than SF2. Luckily, I knew exactly what I could play to settle this dilemma: VRCinema. VRCinema was a social game where players with VR headsets would hang out with others watching movies or videos from OurTube. The cool thing about the game was that you didn’t need a headset to play it. All you really needed was a keyboard and mouse to move around. A microphone was optional, but it makes it ten times easier to communicate. The one server I always go on was a server that was set in a club venue map that has private rooms if you didn’t want to deal with other annoying players with their OC avatars bothering you. While I am on the topic of OC’s, am I the only one who seems to find stories with OC’s in them to be the stupidest thing on the internet? 
Loading up the game was a bit of a tedious process. Since I didn’t have a headset, I had to kind of trick my profile in thinking that I have a VR headset. The way I do it is by starting up the game, but then at the same time open up a console that I would input a command that tricks the game into thinking I’m using a headset. The way I control it is by using my WASD keys and my mouse to move and look around. Then of course you use your mic to speak in the game just by simply speaking. It’s a pretty simple setup for a game where you talk to other users.
Once the game loaded, I found the server button and hit the club venue map. The game then greeted me with a “Please Wait, We are loading your Polygons”. I never liked the force meme VRCinema. Makes me feel like some obnoxious normie of a pony when I see it. The worst part is that they continually add shitty memes to the loading screen because they have a contest on their Flutter page where they can submit memes to be added. I would bet you one million dollars that if I submitted one, it would be accepted. I would be confident in it because it seems that they choose about a dozen submissions every week. Out of the 12 they choose, usually only one of them are actually pretty cheeky. All the other ones are garbage.
As I was dreading that the screen would haunt me longer, the meme disappeared and my perspective of a club was finally loaded. From looking around where I was, it seemed very empty. That was a good sign. 
“Hopefully I won’t tell some weird kid to fuck off this time”, I say in my head. 
Remember when I said that you could have a private room to avoid annoying players? Well they are limited in a server. So if you want to really be alone in a server, get a private room as fast as you can. Cause once they run out, you are stuck with the public screens where everypony can screech and holler as you try to watch whatever it is you want to watch. For me if it gets to that point, I would just leave the server and just go to a different server. Or If I’m really stubborn, I would tell them out right to fuck off. That usually would get me kicked from the server, but I would be okay with it. I could finally avoid the autism of players on the server.
Luckily, the server had plenty of empty private rooms for me to go to. As I was moving towards private room number seven, I heard a sound that had caught my attention. It sounded a lot like talking. I moved towards the sound to figure out what it was. As I drew closer, I began to realize that it wasn’t talking, it was singing. Not like singing coming from a video, but more singing coming from a player. It sounded beautifully sung. Like almost to a point where I thought some popular singer was in the server. Sadly, I don’t think anyone would believe me if I said I met a famous singer in VRCinema.
Moving from around the corner I saw one single player sitting by them self, singing to their heart’s desire. Based on what I had noticed from the voice of this singing player was that it was a mare singing. I’m not one of those perverted players who lose their mind when a gamer mare is in the same game as me, but this one got my attention in the weirdest way. It was almost like her voice was like a spell that forces you to pay attention. Thankfully, she wasn’t using the spell to trap and kill me like the spell used by the sinister Mad Mare to try and take out Quantum Stallion to take over the world. Here I go again with the nerd talk.
I move closer to her to keep listening to her singing. I managed to get close enough to make out what she was singing. 
“The world is broken, Halos fail to glisten. You try to make a difference, but no one wants to listen.”, The mysterious mare sang. I thought at first it was some weird rebellion song at first, but as I listened more I realized it was more than that.
She followed up the questioning lyric with,” Love is forever, and we'll die, we'll die together and lie, I say never. 'Cause our love could be forever and ever.” 
I was amazed. It was a strong lyric that would even rival my favorite bands lyrics from Smashing Melons. That takes some strong lyrics to do that.
I had decided after listening for about 5 minutes I would go introduce myself to her. At that time, my mind was running at 300 mph due to how nervous I was. I had always had a problem talking to mares. One time, there was a mare that I had once had a crush on who used to work at the bakery. I would awkwardly say hi to her every time I pass by her like the dork I was. Only once I managed to gather up the courage to ask her out, the only problem was I nearly threw up on myself asking her out. I can let you take the guess if she went out with me.
As I was debating what to say, I was already in speaking distance to where I could say something to her. If you thought I said something smooth like, “Damn, you looking sharp”, or some other sex innuendo, you are mistaken. 
Instead, I said probably the creepiest thing I could say to mare not knowing I was there,”You sing beautifully.”
With that line being heard, she stopped singing and gasped out of fear. 
“Oh shit I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just-”, I said in a panicked voice as I trailed off. 
“How long were you listening?”, the scared mare said as she sat up from the chair in front of the screen. 
“I-I had listened for about f-five minutes, can I just say-”, I try to say before being cut off by the now frantic mare. 
“Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. I thought the server was empty so I figured it would be okay if I started singing along to music. Now you probably think I’m not a good singer and-”, She said as she went on a tangent on how embarrassed she was. 
I was shocked. I was originally expecting her to start yelling at me about how I was some creep listening to her from behind. Instead, much like me, she was embarrassed by being noticed. 
“Ah shit, you probably think I’m a bad singer do you”, she then asks me with a now almost sad tone. When she said it like that, I almost felt bad for approaching her now. 
“What? N-No. You didn’t sound bad. You actually sounded good. Really good actually. It’s why I came up to you was to listen to it”, I say sympathetically to try and comfort the mare. 
“Y-Y-You thought it sounded good”, the distraught mare said.
“Good is a huge disservice to it. It actually sounded rather beautiful to me”, I say as I begin to call myself stupid in my head for calling it beautiful like the dork I am.
“Wow, I never heard anyone say that about my singing.”, She says with a now slightly bright tone.
There was an awkward silence between us before she had turned to me and introduced herself. 
“My name is Gem”, Gem says walking over to my character.
“It’s nice to meet you Gem, my names Lotus”, I say to respond.
“Lotus, I really like that name. Where is it from”, Gem asks me.
“It’s from a comic series I like to read called ‘Quantum Stallion’. It’s the name of the AI the hero uses”, I say to Gem hoping she doesn’t think I’m a huge nerd. 
“Huh, I might have to read that series one day”, Gem says, making me feel like I’m not the only nerd on the server. 	
“What song was that”, I ask Gem. “Hmm? Sorry?”, Gem asks.
“The song you were singing when I came up. It sounded really good”, I ask genuinely. 
“It was ‘Galactic Nova’ by the band Moose. I really love that band”, Gem says now perking up a bit. 
“Moose? I never heard of them”, I say in response. 
“You should sit here and listen to them with me. I think you would probably like them”, She says as she invites me to sit down next to her. 
“You sure? I don’t want to disturb you listening to them”, I say to Gem with a hesitant voice.
“Yeah, you can listen with me. You could even put in some songs you want to listen to if you want”, Gem says as she began loading another song into the playlist. 
“Alright”, I say as I sit down next to Gem as another song plays.
If I could describe Moose, they sounded a bit more futuristic, but at the same time have a rock feel to them. One example is the song,”Guards of Clydonia”. It had a futuristic sound, but at the same time sounded like a western rock song. I was really starting to dig Moose. 
“Enjoying them?”, Gem asks me as she looked over at me.	
“I have to say, you have a really good taste in music. I feel like I missed out on them by not knowing them”, I say with much gratitude. 
“That’s good that you like them. How about yours?”’, Gem asks me. 
“My what?”, I ask back. 
“Your favorite band. I’m curious to know yours”, Gem says passing the playlist control over to me. 
I decided to play her a track off of Smashing Melons album “Siamese Sadness”. The track I chose was called “Arm You”. That song always spoke to me for some unknown reason. 
Playing the song, I began to hum the lyrics with Gem sitting there. I was hoping that she would think they are good. Many other ponies, including PJ, didn’t like them due to the lead singers voice. It never really bothered me. 
“They sound good, really good actually. I love how somber the song is”, Gem says while listening to the song. 
“You really think so?”, I ask her to make sure she said what I thought she said. 
“Yeah, the lead singer’s voice is rather calming to me”, Gem says while the inside of my mind blows up from excitement; Somepony also likes the lead singer’s voice, even though it sounds a little high for a stallion. 
We had sat there for about three hours listening to music together and kind of talking about each other’s day. Gem had talked about how she was a singer in a college for the musical arts and that she had sung in some small concerts at bars and stuff. I found it kind of odd that somepony was opening up like this to some random player that at first scared her, but I guess she must have really appreciated the fact I thought her singing was beautiful. In that time, I also mentioned that I worked in a bakery. It was really the first time I ever opened up to somepony else that wasn’t PJ. At first, I thought she would just say that it was cool, like as a way of saying,”Oh, that is ok I guess.” Gem actually was impressed by it, she even said that I could maybe become a baker based on what I said.
We were discussing something about our jobs and occupation, but then Gem sat up from the chair kind of fast. 
“Shoot, I really would like to speak more, but unfortunately I have to go”, she says with a disappointed tone. 
“Oh, ok. Well how about I send you a friend request so we can hang out another time”, I say as I select her name to send her a friend request. I heard her give a small chuckle of gratitude. 
“Yeah, I would like to hang out another time. You seem like a nice player”, Gem says as I received the notification that she accepted the friend request. 
“Will you be on tomorrow at all”, I ask right before she had left the room. 
“I don't exactly know Lotus. I have school and probably gonna be tired afterwards, but I'll see.”, Gem says looking back at me one last time. 
“Ok, well I’ll see you whenever. See you later Gem”, I say before pressing a key to give a wave animation to Gem. 
“See you later Lotus, have a good night”, Gem says before finally disappearing with a message from the server saying “Gem has left the server (Disconnected by user)”.
Having talked to this mare, I felt that this could be a friend on my friends list that I would actually talk to. I have around 135 friends on my list, but out of all of them the only ones I ever really talked to were PJ and a couple of traders who had items I was looking for. In most cases, somepony who would add me because of me being in a game would talk to me once and then we never speak to each other again. It was weird, but I felt a feeling of a long lasting friendship with her. It felt like I would be speaking with her everyday like I do with PJ.
Having logged off of Smoke for the night, I trotted over to my bed where I began the day with my alarm clock screaming at me. Using my magic, I pulled back the covers to get into bed. I could really tell the bed missed me because of how much it embraced me when I laid down on it. My head laid there on my two comfy pillows for about 15 minutes before my eyes felt heavy as I drifted into a long night’s rest.