Button Mash! Master of the Arcade Arts!

by Clockworklich

Obsession.

"Feel the warmth flowing through me. Feel it flow like a river..." Button chanted to himself as he sat with his eyes closed. It hadn't taken Button long to find a book called 'introduction to magic' in the foal's section, though it did take him half an hour to find the magic within. "I think I've got it... okay, now what?" Button asked as he looked down at the open book. "Imagine the flow of magic flowing up to your horn and will it to... wait." Button looked up at nothing as if trying to find an invisible horn. Not seeing any reason not to try, Button followed the instructions and brought the mana up to his forehead.

Button let out a cry of pain as the energy ruptured out of his forehead, knocking him on to his back. Tears ran down his face as he brought his hooves up to the spot that was hurt, thankfully finding no injury as the pain went away. With a sniffle, Button sat back up.

"Well... I got a point." Button said with uncertainty as he gave the book a weary look. As much as Button wants to grind this stat he wasn't about to literally beat himself up to do it.

"Okay, I have video game powers, so what would a video game character do?" Button asked himself. Browse furrowing in concentration, Button thought through all sorts of video games before having an idea. Leaning back, Button held one foreleg out straight and held it with his other hoof in his best imitation of Mega-Mare. He had just earned a point of mana and was about to spend it on this. Following the instructions from before, Button focused the energy, only this time he directed it towards his outstretched hoof. There was a weak glow on the bottom of his hooves but it was over so fast he almost missed it.

"Well, that was a dud." Button said as he looked at his now empty mana bar.

"Yes!" Button shouted out with glee as he gave a victory lap around the room.

Button knew that the lower the stats the faster they went up, but he didn't expect two from his mana refilling once. Then again he never played a character with only one stat in anything. Emptying his MP once more Button looked around the room. He still needed to get vitality, intelligence, and magic up to 50 and this room looked like a good place to grind. It was round so he can run in circles and was full of books to read.

Putting the book on magic back where he found it, Button then started looking for any book he thought was complicated enough to quickly grind his INT stat and tossed them all into his inventory.

"I'll return them later, not like there will be anypony to notice them missing any time soon." Button said aloud. Once Button had cleared out a good chunk of the library's contents, draining his MP every time it got close to filling, he started running in circles around the room. This was going to be a long night.

4:00am.

Button stopped in his tracks when he heard the alarm clock in his saddlebags going off. Quickly removing the clock to shut it off Button rushed out the door and back home. Making sure that he left no hoofprints, Button snuck back up to his room. Sure that he was home free, Button brought up his stats.

It was a good thing that leveling up had restored his HP. As bad a beating he got from the boss he didn't think he had much left to lose and the 20hp from that failed experiment might have pushed him over the edge. He could swear that near the end of his boss fight he heard that annoying sound from the Zelda games when you're running low on hearts. Slipping into his room Button climbed into bed and turned on his bedside light to read some books to grind his INT until he had to get up. continuing to empty his mana bar all along.

"Are you holding his video games hostage?" A unicorn mare asked.

"Blackmail?" An earth pony mare gave a guess.

"Is there a new game system coming out that I'm not aware of?" Another earth pony mare asked.

"No! I have no idea what's going on!" Mommy Mash exclaimed. She and some other mothers were sitting on a bench in the park with a picnic basket. "He has this look in his eyes that I normally see before I have to take a game away from him. This look of obsession. I have no idea if I should be worried or proud!" Mommy said as she took another juice box out when Button came back around. Once he got to them he just stopped as Mommy held the juice in front of him to drink while the mare next to him used a fold-up fan to cool him off. He didn't stay long though. As soon as he finished his drink he started running again.

"How long has he been at this?" The unicorn asked.

"Since this morning. He ate breakfast then ran over to the park and just didn't stop, outside of lunch and those quick rehydration breaks at least. Sometimes, when I go up to his room to wake him up in the morning, I find him playing video games, exhausted because he never went to sleep. This morning when I went into his room I caught him reading an introductory book on physics! Physics! I have no idea where he even got the book! I don't even know where it went. When I looked away it was gone and when I asked about it he tells me that he has physics books hidden all over town in case of physics emergencies." Mommy said with a sigh as she leans back, never taking her eyes off her son as he ran around the park like he was being chased by a hydra.

"Sounds like something Pinkie Pie would say." One of the mares said.

"Yes... I let him apprentice under Pinkie in gadgeteering yesterday. But she couldn't have rubbed off on him that quickly could she?" Mommy asked.

"Yes! And then there was one!" All of them quickly turned their heads towards the shout to see Button jumping with joy before letting himself drop to the ground and roll around while laughing happily.

"..."

"... Well, he started acting strangely before Pinkie got involved so it's not just her..." Mommy Mash sighed at the looks her friends gave her. Meanwhile, Button Mash was looking at his stats.