//------------------------------//
// Prologue: Not Our Story 
// Story: My Little PonyStuck (BETA) 
// by Leafsw0rd 
//------------------------------//

Years in the past, but not many...
It is unknown where the Game first began. How would one know? It's been part of Existence since before anyone alive could possibly remember, and anything that did exist at that time must have been destroyed a million times over. What is known is that the Game is undeniably the most complex and convoluted thing in Existence, and considering that Existence contains Pinkie Pie's mind, this means a lot.

It is a story, told a million times over. This story changes every time, no two "sessions" the same. There are always heroes, always players but they can be of any intelligent species, and there may be four of them, or six, or twelve, or two, or forty-eight, in the one story. The heroes' each have one world, but these vary just as much as the heroes themselves; Lands of Wind and Shade, of Light and Rain, of Frost and Heat and Pulse and Flow. What does stay consistent for every "session" is two city-planets, and a tenuous stalemate between good and evil. When the story truly begins, this forced peace breaks out into a vicious and constantly escalating war. The good always loses. Always.

But the evil does not always win.

It would not surprise those who know of the game, and of it's purpose, that Princess Celestia played it once. Nor would they be surprised to learn her sister played it as well. There are certain... traits players of this game gain over it's course. Both these Princesses have these traits, and have claimed the reward as well.

Their game was a convoluted one, and one of the most revealing stories. Its players got a better understanding of the game's core functions than any other group had hitherto achieved. This is not their story. This is a story, of a completely different, yet very related session one derived from the Princesses' session. It differed in many key ways.

The players had been doubled, for starters. And none of the derivative players were as chaotic or evil as the Mage of Mind the previous session had. 

This is not the story of his ascension to power. If we were following that session then we would watch that story. We would watch as he started out nice and friendly. We would watch as, during chaos, his ability to stay calm would save his pink-maned friend. We would watch him be in turn saved by a dark blue earth pony. We would watch as he brokered a peace with a traitorous rogue, and worked with him on many a task.

We would watch him be betrayed by that dark, carapaced man.

We would watch the Mage fall.

It would not happen instantly. We would watch him bottle his rage. We would watch him stay perfectly calm and apparently friendly. We would watch him collaborate, co-operate, and help his friends prepare to achieve their ultimate goal.

We would watch them as they reached up and challenged the most fearsome foe the game would face them with. We would watch as one of his friends cracked a light joke at his expense.

We would watch him SNAP.

We would watch him scream in rage, letting out the pain, the remorse, the misery. 

We would watch the betrayed turn traitor.

We would watch the battle that followed.

We would watch him be the last one standing. 

We would watch him claim the prize for himself.

We would watch what happened next.

But we're not going to watch that. 

We have a different story to see.