//------------------------------//
// Gamers don't die 
// Story: The Anti-Friendship Lesson 
// by Ezekiel Namuh 
//------------------------------//

"Run that by me again, please," came from Twilight Sparkle and her very confused expression.

Rainbow Dash sighed exhaustedly and replied with, "Me and Fluttershy were supposed to help Applejack and Big Mac paint the barn when we see somepony lurking around in the Everfree forest. One song-and-don't-dance-but-instead-run later, I'm the only one left following them. Then they fell off a cliff."

"They fell off a cliff?" Twilight recoiled.

"They were going to fall off a waterfall, but tried jumping back last second."

Twilight stared dumbfoundedly for multiple moments. "Run that by me again, please."

Rainbow Dash looked exasperated. "Come on Twilight, that's the fifth time you've asked, and each time I've told you less! All you really need to know is the Everfree Pony."

Twilight responded, "And I presume you don't know why."

"Nope."

"Well, did you even talk to them? They had to have a reason for being in there."

"We tried, but they seemed like they didn't want to talk."

"By 'we', I assume you mean Applejack," Twilight snarked.

"Not. Important."

"This ordeal must be important if you four constantly think back to it or mention it for some reason. You've brought it up multiple times since this morning. I'd think it was you getting nervous after we just got home from the Equestria games. I feel like you're concerned."

"Well, you'd be too!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash after sighing and said softly, "Alright, how about this, we'll sleep, and then us and the girls will look around and find them at dawn. Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah! I'll be ready to kick some flank!"

"You mean if they turn out to be causing trouble, right?" Twilight questioned.

"Yeah, right," Rainbow Dash said, almost looking disappointed.





Night passed(More easily for some than others), and somehow, all of the elements of harmony were willing to go. It was either concern, the prospect of a new friend, or... what Rainbow Dash was thinking. Fluttershy seemed to be most concerned for the mystery pony after hearing the story of what happened after she left.

"They just disappeared like that?" she asked.

Rainbow Dash replied with, "That's the gist of it, yeah."

Fluttershy gave of a concerned face and muttered, "I wonder what happened to them."

Twilight, after staying relatively quiet, said, "Well, Rainbow Dash didn't find them after they fell off the waterfall, so we'll start at the river after that point." That seemed to reassure Fluttershy slightly.

"Let's just hope they're okay."





Somewhere, in a part of the forest that looks suspiciously similar to where Ty first awoke, he did it again.

"Ugh,  where did I end up this time?" He muttered to himself while sitting up. He looked around to see where he was. "Ha-ha. I get it, we respawn." He then noticed there were some differences, like how he could see the waterfall he fell off in the distance and the river flowing from it was directly behind him. After thinking about water multiple times he realized something else.

"Why am I soaked?" His best reason was he got knocked unconscious after hitting the river and floated down here. Those suspicions were confirmed when he coughed up some water. "Well, it's not as bad as I expected." He said before something hot on his back made him freeze before turning around.

He came face to face with a creature that looked like a bunch of sticks cobbled together into the form of a wolf. Its glowing green eyes felt like they bored holes into him before he thought, I was pretty sure you guys hunted at night. Then he looked up and saw the sun was, instead of directly above him, moving down and almost completely covered by the cliff next to the waterfall.

"*Sigh* Great," he said before the timber wolf growled while its face was still inches away from Ty's own. He backed up before hearing the sloshing sound a river makes when you back into it out of fear of being eaten alive. "Okay, screw this," he thought before weaving around it and dashing along the river. As it followed him, he got an idea/remembered something/stole an idea from a fictional character. He jerked to the right and stuck out his forelegs, expecting the timber wolf to jump over it and smack into the tree positioned behind him.

Well, the wolf hit the tree, but it sure didn't jump. It instead rolled after it hit Ty's legs and took him with it. Ty kept moving while the wolf hit the tree, shattering.

'That's kind of graphic. This would probably be easier if I had the body I'm more used to. I don't even have hands!' His gaze turned slightly upward. 'But I do have that.'

He turned and saw the pile of sticks next to bright blue flowers with berries. Since I probably can't eat these, I'll try to use my magic on them. He imagined how using magic would actually work, then concentrated on one of the berries.

It took a little time, but he eventually saw a slight haze around it. 'Come on...'

In a short period of time, he saw an aura materialize. It was so surprising it broke his concentration, causing the berry to drop. The aura was the same colors as his eyes, an almost psychedelic swirl of deep purple and cyan.

"Okay, let's try that again, shall we?"

He concentrated again, and it happened almost instantaneously. Once the aura was on the berry, he tried to move it upwards. The berry slowly started to ascend.

'Yeah!' He thought to himself before the berry started to waver and fell again. 'Nope. Well, maybe it's because of the specific thing. Levitating water seems like it would be hard, so maybe a fruit filled with liquid would be almost as difficult,' he thought while turning over to the sticks. He concentrated on one and it slowly raised.

Then he realized that all of the sticks were floating. 'Wow. I didn't expect it to be that much stronger.'

Realization struck again when he realized his aura only surrounded one stick, while the rest reformed into the timber wolf. His eyes widened and his concentration effectively shattered, allowing the last stick to snap into place.

'Now that is just unfair.'

One unnecessarily short chase scene later and Ty pulled the exact same trick on the expectedly stupid timber wolf. As he righted himself he grumbled, "I really need to find a less painful way to deal with those things."

He looked at the wolf and nervously thought, 'Let's just get away from that and find a place to sleep.'

He walked along the river and found a bush a while away that didn't seem to have anything wrong with it. After what felt like seven hours of just sitting there, he finally fell asleep.

For ten minutes. He woke up and saw through the bush that it was still nighttime.

Come on. Can't you just let me sleep until it's almost morning? The moon immediately went down and the sun replaced it. Oh.

He laid in "bed" for about 40 minutes before giving up, sitting up, and leaning out of the bush, where his vision was immediately assaulted by pink.

"Hi!"

He squinted at her before muttering, "It's too early for this." He then laid back down, thinking, This is the last pony I want to see right now.

"That's what I told Twilight and Rainbow Dash, but I get to make up for it by meeting somepony new!" Pinkie Pie agreed.

Ty was visibly disheartened, "Oh, I suppose they were looking for me, then?"

Right then they heard Twilight say from some distance away, "Pinkie! Where are you?"

Ty said, "Hey, when they come straight to us, because of course they will, can you not tell them about me being here, please?"

"Sure!" She said before turning around and then turning back. "Why?"

He answered, "I just don't feel like going anywhere or talking to anyone... pony."

"Okay, you can count on me," Pinkie practically exclaimed while saluting. Twilight and everyone else showed up directly after.

"Who were you talking to?" Twilight asked.

Pinkie responded with, "Definitely not some random pony that may or may not be the one we're looking for." She lowered her head to the bush Ty was laying in and loudly whispered, "I don't think they've caught on."

Ty groaned and replied after sitting up, "Yes, that was so well executed it was painful."

Twilight leaned over to Applejack and whispered, "Is that the pony you saw two days ago?"

"Yep, that's them," Applejack confirmed with a suspicious look on her face.

Rainbow Dash looked over to Fluttershy to make some bad joke, but realized she wasn't doing anything. Just staring after hearing that voice. "Fluttershy? You alright?"

Fluttershy, still staring at Ty, whispered back, "That voice, for some reason, reminds me of Flutterguy."

"You mean the fact it's a mare with a stallion's voice, right? 'Cause she doesn't sound anything like Flutterguy. Aside from sounding bored, flat, and dry." Rainbow Dash said back.

Ty spoke up now, "Firstly, you all whisper way too loud. Secondly, I'm a stallion in a mare's body." He aimed the last sentence toward Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

They all looked visibly confused. "I've never heard of somepony being born in the wrong gender's body," Twilight wondered aloud.

"That's because I wasn't born like this."

"Well, what could've happened to you?" Pinkie questioned.

"Nothing, I was like this when I got here two days ago."

Twilight flew forward and squinted at him, "What do you mean by that."

Ty was going to respond, but then he looked at the narration in the last paragraph and thought, Wait, flew?

Indeed, on Twilight's back were a pair of two wings allowing her to hover inches from Ty's face while still having her trademark horn.

Great. Whatever universe I've landed in has essentially the protagonist of the series as a literal god. "I've said too much."

Pretty much everyone was wearing a skeptical face now. Ty backed up, saying, "Okay, I'm just going to go now."

Applejack stepped forward and started, "Now wait fer' just a-" She didn't finish as Ty shot to the right in a curve. He looked back at the two ponies who looked at him with a mix of shock and... concern? He turned to face forward only to get a face full of white and purple, knocking both him and Rarity unconscious.

Rainbow Dash flew up to them and said, "Well, I guess that's just what happens when you sit in the back and say nothing the whole time. Almost as if someone forgot you were here."

"What do we do now?" Applejack questioned, "it's not like we can actually learn anything from him when he's knocked out."

Twilight pondered this. "Let's just take them back to the library," she said while levitating Rarity into the air. Rainbow Dash threw Ty over her shoulder.

"Holy crud this guy is light," she said before they made their way back to Ponyville.