//------------------------------// // Stabby, Stab, Stab... // Story: My Little Fortress: Team Is Magic // by CanterlotGuardian //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle’s POV It’s a lazy day this morning, which is good. I have had just too much going on as of late… Especially yesterday. Yeesh. I mean, don’t get me wrong: Pinkie Pie’s parties are pretty awesome, for the most part. And it was for a good cause as well, it being Rainbow Dash’s birthday and everything. I just wish it hadn’t gone on as long as it had… I yawn as I roll over in my bed. I see Spike lazing about in his bed, and I can’t help but smile. He tried to make it all the way through Dash’s party yesterday, he really did… Unfortunately, with him being as little as he is, he just couldn’t stay up all the way through. I’m just surprised the loud music didn’t wake him up. He’s always been a heavy sleeper, though, I guess. I get up and stretch my tired limbs. It’s still too early… I don’t really even want to get up. Unfortunately, I kind of have to. Princess Celestia is coming later on today to check out my research on alternate universe-viewing. I’ve been working on this machine to allow a pony to go to another dimension, but not really. I think they call it virtual reality. Anyways, that’s what I’ve been working on for the past month or so, and it’s finally done. Now all I need to do is- Gah. A knock on the door. “Who is it?” I call out. “It’s me!” says a familiar voice. “I need to talk to you about something, Twilight!” “Coming!” I call out, hopping out of bed. I head down the stairs and walk over to the door. I open it up, smiling. “What’s up, Rainbow Dash?” I step aside to let her come in. She’s smiling pretty widely, so I know something’s gone well for her. “What’s gotten you so happy?” “Man,” she replies, “yesterday was the greatest day ever! I got to spend the morning with Rainbowshine and we played this really sweet new game called Team Fortress 2, and then-“ “Called what, now?” “Team Fortress 2. And don’t worry, I said pretty much the same thing when I first found out about it. Anyways, we played that until a little after noon, then I went and took a nap and guess what?” “What?” “I had a dream!” I chuckle a bit. “Well, that is generally what tends to happen when you go to sleep.” She looks at me with a deadpan expression. “Come on, Twilight, you know I wouldn’t even be mentioning it if it were just a regular dream… Anyways, I dreamed I was in the game! I was flying alongside one of the characters- the Scout, I think he called himself- and… well, it was the best dream I’ve had in quite awhile!” “Wow, that sounds… interesting. So tell me a little more about this game.” “Well, there are nine classes you can play as; the Scout is only one of them. There’s the Heavy, which is this massively huge guy who carries around a mini-gun, there’s the Sniper, who I think just has a sniper rifle and shoots people from across the map…” I can’t help but be intrigued by this. Especially by this Sniper character that she’s mentioned. I’m rather liking him already. “Do you have the game?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Rainbowshine does, though. I’m pretty sure that she won’t mind if I borrow it, if you want to play it.” I’m about to respond, when a stroke of brilliance comes over me. This is the perfect opportunity for me to test out my virtual reality machine! “I’ll do you one better, Rainbow Dash. How would you like to help me out in one of my little experiments?” She looks at me a bit wary. “What exactly does this… experiment entail?” I smile a bit evilly, which causes her to cringe a bit. “Go get the game from Rainbowfire-“ “Rainbowshine.” “Oh, sorry- Rainbowshine… and bring it here. I’ve got an idea that’ll make quite a few of us happy…” She’s still looking at me funny, but eventually she acquiesces and flies away. It’s about at this point that Spike walks downstairs, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Dang, Twilight… Can you and Rainbow make any more noise?” I laugh a bit sheepishly. “My bad, Spike… Hey as long as you’re awake, you wanna help me with something? I think I’ve found the perfect first test for the VR machine…” --- It’s about another hour or so before Rainbow Dash shows back up. She’s got a mailsack slung over her shoulder, and I can see something rather bulky inside. I’m about to ask whose it is, but then I see the muffin clip on the side of it, and everything makes sense. “Why did Derpy give you her mailsack?” I ask curiously. “Oh, this? I needed something to carry the game in. Besides, she was done with her morning mail call, except for one letter which was for you anyways. She just told me to have it for her when she comes by to get it for her afternoon mail run, and she’ll just pick it up then.” “Ah.” I turn to the machine and give it a showy little presentation. “So? What do you think?” She looks up at it, after taking the game and my letter out of the mailsack. “Whoa.” She looks it over for a minute, not saying anything. Finally, she continues: “That… is big. How long did it take you to build it?” “Me and Spike together, about three weeks. I started on it as soon as Princess Celestia gave me the task, and I just finished it last night.” “It looks… complicated. Dare I ask how it works?” I laugh softly. “It’s not really all too complicated. Besides, you’re going to have to learn it regardless. I need your help with something.” Now she’s really looking at me with a wary eye. “Um… okay…” “You were telling me about that game earlier, and well… I got pretty intrigued about it. So I went on the PonyNet and looked it up.” “What’d you find?” “Oh, a whole bunch of stuff! Anyways, the upshot of it is, I’m more excited than ever about it. So, what I wanted to do was to plug the game into the VR machine and see how it runs.” I must have said something really out of character, because Rainbow Dash looks at me now with the strangest expression on her face. “So wait… you actually want to play the game? Using that machine?” “Um, yeah… Why, should I not do that?” “Oh, no, no!” Dash explains, blushing a bit. “I didn’t meant to imply that. It’s just… well, you don’t really seem like a likely candidate to volunteer to play a game.” This is definitely true. “I guess so, but the way you were talking about it, you broke down my defenses. Now I want to play it.” Rainbow grinned. “That’s awesome! And if you need me to mann- I mean, man- the machine while you’re in there, I’d be glad to.” I nod and walk over to the side of the contraption. “And it’s not like you’re going to be in here working this giant thing by yourself, either. Spike is going to be here the whole time, and he knows this machine just as well as I do.” I look around as I say that. “Where is Spike, by the way?” “I think he went back to sleep. He was mentioning something about not getting his beauty rest earlier… I think I might’ve woken him up.” I can’t help but shake my head at him; Spike and his sleep… I take a minute or two to show Dash how the machine works, and she seems to get it right off the bat. I told her it wasn’t complicated… Maybe she won’t even need Spike, after all. It’ll be good to let the little guy sleep. I walk over to the chair and strap on the goggles. “You remember how to fire it up, right?” Dash pops the disc into the tray on the side and gives me a hoofs-up. I take that as my signal, and I start the machine up. Nothing happens. “Um, Rainbow… Are you sure you put the disc in on the right side?” “What side was it supposed to be on?” I sigh. “You were the one who brought the disc to me, to begin with. I thought you knew.” “How was I supposed to know? Rainbowshine already had the disc in her laptop when I got there.” She goes over and removes the disc, looking at both sides of it. After a moment, she slides it back in, shiny-side down. “There, I think that does it.” I power the machine down, then start it back up again. I’m just about to say something to her when- A blinding flash of light. --- It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust, but when I do so, I find myself in a cramped room with a whole bunch of people. They’re all wearing the same color uniform: red. I have no idea where I am at this point, so I go over to the most unassuming individual to speak to him. “Um, pardon me, sir… Where am I?” He looks down at me, and his eyes about pop out of his head. “What in the bloody hell are you supposed to be?” His accent is unlike any I’ve heard before. “I’m a pony,” I reply honestly. “What are you supposed to be?” “I’m a snoipeh. Pleased to meet ya.” It takes me a minute to process what he’s just said. When it finally gets through to me, I grin widely. This is the sniper! The one I said I wanted to meet! “So… what exactly does a sniper do?” His expression changes, from one of disbelief to one of elation. I think he likes the prospect of showing off his sniping skills. “Just stick with me, lass. I’ll show ya everything ya need to know.” Suddenly, a voice sounds from a speaker on the wall: “Mission begins in ten seconds.” After a few seconds, it begins a countdown. When it gets down to zero, the doors automatically open and everyone starts rushing out. “Remember! Stay close to me!” I run as fast as I can, but his long legs are causing him to run faster than I ever could. I put on my determined face, though, and I try to keep up with him. Eventually, we get to a cabin-like building, and he finally stops. “Alright, so this is where we’ll stay at for now.” He looks down the barrel of his gun, then fires a shot. “Ah damn, I missed ‘im…” He reloads a shot, then focuses and fires again. “Hah! Bastard didn’t even see the second one comin’!” I was looking at the playing field and I didn’t even see the person that he shot. “Um… how far can that thing shoot?” He looks at me momentarily before grinning and sighting himself back in. “If I can see him… I can shoot him.” Wow. I look around at the battlefield and see a cluster of enemies with blue-colored clothing. “You can’t shoot all of them at once, can you?” He notices where I’m looking and grins a bit evilly. “Nope, but I’ll show you what I can do.” He reaches into what I think is absolutely nowhere and pulls out a jar filled with a yellow liquid. Oh god. What the hell? “Is that really-“ “Bombs away!” He launches it out the window at the gaggle of enemies, drenching them all in the contents. Immediately, a very large man pops up from around the corner and unleashes a hail of bullets from a very large gun, demolishing all of the enemies in a matter of seconds. My sniper friend laughs maniacally. “Bloody hell, you are awful…!” Suddenly, an idea comes to him, and he looks at me. “You want to try?” Me? As a sniper? “Um, well, yes I would like to try, but… I don’t entirely know how how well I’ll do.” “You’ll do fine. Just do what I’ve been doing. Make sure you aim properly before firing, and you’ll get the hang of it.” He takes the time to set the sniper rifle up on the windowsill, using a tripod, before taking out a very long sword-looking object. “What’s that?” “Oh, this old beaut? I call this the Tribalman’s Shiv. I make ‘em bleed. That’s the fun part.” He grins again. “Just start snipin’. I’ll make sure no one gets ya from behind.” I take a deep breath and look down the scope. Immediately, I see an enemy version of the large man from our team lumbering down from the opponents’ hut. “Is that… the Heavy?” He looks out the window as well. “Sure is. If you see a Heavy or a Soldier- they're the ones with the giant rocket launchers on their shoulders- go for them first. They’re the easiest to pick off, seeing as they’re the slowest.” Huh. Makes sense. I keep trained in on him for another few seconds before squeezing the trigger. Almost immediately, he flops onto the ground, a nice clean bullet hole in his skull. “Hah! What’d I tell ya? You’ve got the hang of it already- whoops, hang on!” I look to the side just in time to see him finish off an enemy clad in some kind of full-body suit, but not before the enemy’s gun has lit him completely on fire. Almost on instinct, I reach over to the side, where he’d set another jar of that yellow… whatever it was, and throw it on him. Luckily, it douses the fire. He shakes off the excess liquid. “Bloody hell… Them damn Pyros. I hate ‘em- well, when they’re not on our side. Bloody crazy-ass motherf-“ His sentence is cut short, as a gentleman clad in a full suit and ski mask appears from out of nowhere- was he invisible?- and buries a knife in the sniper’s back, causing him to fall onto the floor dead. He laughs, then looks at me, a look of shock slowly coming over him. “Now what on earth are you supposed to-“ At this point, though, my vision’s already begun to blur and go red. I remember running over to the Tribalman’s Shiv, if that’s what he called it, and picking it up. I slice out at the newcomer, watching him fall to my blade. I laugh out loud as I stand over his fallen body, and then- --- I feel the goggles being pulled from my eyes, and the next thing I know I’m staring at Rainbow Dash, who has a very concerned look on her face. “What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?” “You, Twilight… You went all crazy there at the end. Started saying something about ‘no one kills my sniper friend’ or something like that…” Oh. Well apparently the virtual reality affected my mind a bit more than I’d thought. “Sorry about that. Did I wake Spike up at all?” Dash laughs. “Not in the slightest. He’s been out cold since you got in that thing.” I almost don’t hear that last part, because I’m struck with an absolutely brilliant idea. “Dash. Gather up all the others. As many of our friends as you can find.” She looks at me funny. “Why do you want me to do that?” I grin like the Sniper did. “Because, my friend… I want everyone to experience this wondrous thing for themselves.”