//------------------------------// // Warming Up // Story: May The Best Gamer Win! // by Golden Cake //------------------------------// As Samuel stepped out of the arcade, he looked up to the sky, with his hands on his side, as he smiled with pride. “Now THAT, is how you show those newbies how it’s done!” Samuel then walked down the sidewalk, towards his parent’s house, as he continued smiling. “Poor kids never should’ve signed up for a Zombie Hunter 2 competition without knowing what they were getting into.” Samuel rummaged through his junk filled pocket and pulled out a ribbon, his prize for winning the competition. ”Wish the prize was a bit more than this, though,” he thought to himself. “Oh well.” He then put the ribbon back in his pocket, and started whistling a merry tune, as he broke out into a confident strut, not noticing the glowing colors and strange noises coming from under him, before he suddenly fell into the ground. Samuel fell about ten feet, before he face planted onto a soft, red carpet. Samuel rubbed his face to ease some of the pain, before he looked around. He was in some kind of large, fancy, marble room, with a throne at the end of it. A throne room? “The hell?” He said to himself, as he stood up. When he stood up, the doors behind him, which he didn’t notice at first, swung open, revealing the figure of… a horse. A dark blue horse, with an unnatural, flowing mane. The horse also had wings, and was wearing a bright orange baseball cap, backwards, and partially mesh , and she had a horn that was poking through the open area above the closure of the hat. She looked kind of silly. She looked at Samuel with condescending eyes, as she took a sip from a cup of soda, which was levitating next to her in some kind of magical glow. “Ok,” Samuel said, as he put his hands in the air and turned around. “This is too weird.” He then started walking to the other side of the room, with no real destination in mind, before he looked up at the ceiling. “HELLO??” He yelled, in the hopes that someone else would hear him. “I FELL INTO SOME CRAZY BASEMENT, CAN SOMEONE HELP ME OUT??” Just then, there was a blinding, blue flash of light right in front of him, which made him stop, as when the flash was gone, the strange horse he saw a second ago had appeared right in front of him. “Err,” Samuel groaned. “Shoo girl, shoo.” He then made a shooing motion with his hands, as the creature stood there, motionless, as it looked down at him unamusedly. “WE WOULD APPRECIATE YOU CEASING THIS FOOLISHNESS,” the creature suddenly yelled in front of him, scaring the life out of Samuel, as he fell to the ground. It wasn’t a scream of anger, but more of a monotone tone, just really, really loud. Samuel couldn’t tell if it was the fear that made him fall over, or if the actual force of this creatures yelling had actually knocked him down on his rear, but either way he was pretty freaked out. “Wh-what are you?!” The human quivered, as the creature took another sip of its soda and gave him an evil smile. The creature didn’t answer, as it scanned Samuel up and down, judging him. “This is it?” It asked, in a normal, feminine voice. “This is this other worlds ‘best gamer’?” Samuel shook his head, then jumped back on his feet. “What the hell are you on about? I don’t know who you are, or what you are, but I just want to go home!! You crazy horse thing…” Samuel said, without a hint of a filter. The horse looked at him with annoyance, before she smiled. “Well, you certainly have the attitude of an elite gamer,” she said. “Come, follow me and I’ll inform you of your situation.” Samuel and the horse then walked down a hallway, after they left the throne room, as the horse lady spoke. “I know you never asked, but my name is Princess Luna. I’m an alicorn princess and co-ruler of ponies here in the world of Equestria,” she sang, as she looked out the hallway’s windows, out at the… surprisingly beautiful countryside, which was lit up by the warm light of the day. Samuel’s eye twitched slightly. “Yep, I really appreciate that information. How silly of me to not even ask you, right?” Samuel asked, as he shot her a venomous glare. The moment he looked at her though, she looked back at him, as she stared at him dead in the face, with an expression that said ‘try me’, before Samuel quickly withdrew his aggressive expression, and blushed as he looked the other way. Samuel then cleared his throat. “So… what’s my situation, again?” He asked curiously. Luna continued walking, unfazed by his question, before she spoke about five seconds later. “Well, you see, human, I’m a big fan of video games, and I’ve been good at them for as long as I can remember.” She turned to look at Samuel, as her eyes widened. “And I remember a lot, trust me.” Her ear flicked, as she looked at Samuel for an uncomfortably long time, before she faced forward again, and continued, as the two of them were approaching a large, golden double door. “But, lately, I’ve wanted to prove myself,” she said. “To prove that I’m the best gamer in the whole multiverse, and that’s why I’ve brought you here.” She then lit up her horn, with a sparkly blue glow, and the doors opened, revealing a giant stadium, as Samuel flinched from the loud, excited cries of hundreds… or perhaps thousands, of people in the bleachers. As Luna and Samuel stepped forward, Samuel raised his hand, to shield the sun from his eyes, as he looked at the bleachers. He couldn’t see people in detail because of how far away they were, but going off of the base shape of people in the audience, it seemed that not everyone here was exactly… human. He saw some people that looked like ponies, like Luna, and she saw other shapes that straight up looked like aliens, among a plethora of others. Samuel wasn’t even sure if there was another human like him in the audience. Samuel also looked around him, and saw that there were many other ‘people’ besides him and Luna, who were also standing in the open field of the stadium. “I guess they’re here to compete, too.” “AEDE BIT!!” Luna screamed, using the same loud voice and tone that she’d used on Samuel not long ago. After she yelled, the audience quickly grew silent, and a unique figure from a balcony platform that was branching off of the stadium’s bleachers, who actually looked sort of human, with long, slightly messy hair, and a multicolored, stylized outfit with some kind of cape, stood up from what looked like a throne, as it looked down at Samuel and Luna, as he put his hands on the guardrail and tilted his head. “I’ve brought the last champion we need here, and now, we can compete!!” Luna said excitedly. Aede Bit remained silent, but spoke a second later, in what sounded like a cocky teenage voice. “What’s his name?” He asked. Luna looked at Samuel, and opened her mouth to speak, but Samuel cut her off. “My name is Samuel Weller,” he said, as he looked at Luna. “And I just want to go back home to Earth, I’m not interested in any of this.” Luna‘s ears folded, as she looked at Samuel nervously, and Aede Bit smiled. “Maybe this will change you mind,” Aede said, as he lifted a finger, and magically made the curtains of a nearby stage disintegrate into small, glowing cubes, that floated into the air and disappeared a second later, revealing a giant, indescribably beautiful trophy, that beamed in the sunlight. Samuel had to admit, he’d never been to a gaming competition with a quality reward, and he felt his mouth watering just looking at this trophy. But still, he didn’t want to get wrapped up in this. Samuel opened his mouth to say no, but Aede spoke for him. “I can tell that you like what you see,” he said with a smile. “Listen, Sammy,” he continued. “As long as you at least attend this interdimensional competition, I’ll send you home afterwards.” He then looked around at all of the audience. “I’ll send all of you home! Safe and sound!!” The audience cheered, but Samuel put a hand to his chin, as he thought. “All of them? Does that mean the audience was pulled here t-“ “Now, let the tournament begin!!” Aede interrupted. Luna then used her magic to grab Samuel by the ear, as she pulled him along with her to one of the several doors on the walls of the bottom level to the circular stadium, as all the other contestants went in pairs to their own doors, too. “Hey! Ow! What the hell?!” Samuel said painfully. Luna pulled him with her until they’d entered a pretty small, dimly lit room, that had a comfy looking couch, a large, sturdy coffee table that had several two liter soda bottles of Mountain Dew, and large bags of Doritos piled up on it, and a few different TV’s propped up on an even larger table that was against the wall. Samuel plopped down on the couch, as he rubbed his ear tenderly. “That hurt, ya know!!” He said angrily. Luna didn’t respond, and instead booted up an Xbox One that was on the table against the wall. “Silence, human,” she said blankly, before she sat on the couch next to Samuel. “Right now, I have to focus on my gaming warm up.” Samuel looked at the table that was against the wall, and saw that there were multiple different consoles on it, for all types of gamers, before he looked at Luna. “Warm up?” He asked. Luna sighed, before she looked at Samuel. “Clearly, any elite gamer needs at least a few warm sessions in their game to be at their peak efficiency for a competition,” she said, before she used her magic to levitate an Xbox controller to her, and start pushing buttons, as she set up her game. “Even Aede Bit knows that. That’s why we have these fourty five minutes to warm up.” “Oh,” Samuel said, as he felt silly for asking. “So… what are we playing?” He asked casually, as he got comfy. Luna looked at him for a second, then back at the screen. “Well… the games we play at the actual competition can be random, but I like to warm up with Zombie Hunter 3. It’s good for exercising important aspects that most competitive games have.” “Zombie hunter 3, huh?” Samuel asked. Never played it. But the second game was fun! In my world, I actually just won a video game competition with the game before I landed here!” Luna looked at him, as her expression softened a little. “I wasn’t aware that you were a fan of the Zombie Hunter games,” she said simply. Samuel gave her a small smile, then looked at the floor, as he sighed lightly. But, I’m not sure how much different the third game will be… and I do think it’d be cool to win this competition. I’ve never really gotten anything worth my while before, in any competition I’ve been too, despite how hard I work at being competitive in games…” Samuel said sadly. Luna stopped pressing buttons on the controller, and paused her practice game, before she set the controller down. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Samuel. I too have known how it feels to be under appreciated and unrecognized…” she said, as her ears folded. “But that’s part of why I’m doing this,” she said, as she looked at Samuel with determination. “So I can have something to show for my efforts, for everypony to see!” Luna then levitated another controller to Samuel, as the game was at the ‘start’ menu. “And, don’t worry about the game, Samuel,” she said assuringly, as she gave him a warm smile. “I’ve been a fan of the Zombie Hunter franchise for years, and the third game really isn’t much different at all from the second, gameplay wise.” Samuel smiled back at her, before he picked up his controller and looked at the screen. “So, Luna, shall we warm up?” he said as he looked at the screen determinedly. “Yes we shall!” Luna chirped, as she looked at the screen as well and started the game. Samuel and Luna then spent the next fourty minutes playing Zombie Hunter 3 against each other. They were playing aggressively, and were playing to win, but it also felt a bit more casual between them, like there were no hard feelings with one of them beating the other. As they played through the rounds, Samuel and Luna had almost matching scores, and by the time they were done playing, they were both sweating profusely, with multiple empty bags of Doritos and empty bottles of Mountain Dew on the floor, and the games ending stats said that Samuel had won, practically by the skin of his teeth. Samuel looked at Luna, his face laced with concern. “I’m sorry you didn’t win, Luna,” he said gently. Luna looked at the screen for a few seconds, as she used a hoof to wipe the sweat off her forehead, before she gave a small smile to Samuel. “It’s ok, Samuel. That game was really close! And that was just a part of my warm up anyways.” “Let’s just hope you can keep it up!” She said playfully, as she poked him with her hoof. Luna then held her other hoof(the one she didn’t use to wipe off her forehead with) out to Samuel for him to shake. “Good game, Samuel!” Samuel smiled, and didn’t hesitate to grab her hoof, as he shook it lightly. “Good game, Princess Luna!” Just then, there was the sound of an airhorn, as the door that they had come in disintegrated into colored pixels, before it disappeared completely. The airhorn was followed by the booming sound of Aede Bit yelling. “LET THE COMPETITION, BEGIN!!”