//------------------------------//
// January 22nd (Let the Games Begin) 
// Story: Equestria Legends Online 
// by Shadowflame 
//------------------------------//

	My mind raced as I ran into my house, a large box clutched under my arm. I was extremely excited, and everyone could see that from my exceedingly wide grin. The reason why I was so happy was because the package that I'd gotten today held my very own Nervegear console. But that wasn't all, because I had just barely bought my own copy of the newest brony game for the Nervegear, Equestria Legends Online.

Nervegear, for those of you who don't know, is a sort of virtual reality helmet. It actually catches the mental signals in your brain and warps it to where you are sensing the virtual reality it creates. Although you couldn't move or feel your body in real life, you could feel and experience everything in the game.

I rushed through my house, not even stopping to say 'hi' to any of my family that happened to be there at the time. I hurried downstairs into my room with my Nervegear, because I knew that the servers for ELO (that's short for Equestria Legends Online) would be opened in a couple of minutes, and I wanted to be one of the first ones in. It was incredible really, how Hasbro had funded the best game designers in the world for this single MMO. But, what was even more awesome was that the Nervegear was supposedly able to turn you into a pony, or at least make it feel like you were a pony.

Although, when anybody heard about me wanting the game, they'd think that I was crazy. They always said that a teenage guy like me shouldn't be playing with colorful, rainbow ponies. But ELO was going to be a slap in their faces, because it not only took a player into Equestria, the setting of the game, but there was also a part of the game where you could fight against monsters, with swords, fangs, everything!

Finally, I ran into my room and locked the door behind me. I didn't want anybody interrupting me during my first try of my Nervegear console. Without stopping for a moment, I plopped down the Nervegear box onto my desk, right next to my laptop. I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut open the box, and with it open, I pulled out the Nervegear console.

The console itself was just a disk reader, connected to a large Nervegear helmet. The console came with several cords that kind of confused me at first, but after I looked at the instruction booklet I was able to assemble the entire system.

Once I was done setting up my Nervegear, I looked at my digital clock that sat on my windowsill: It read 11:50 AM, which meant only ten minutes until the ELO servers opened.

Suddenly, my phone began to ring in my pocket. I picked it up and answered, "Hello?"

A familiar voice spoke out through the other side, "Hey, dude. You ready?"

I grinned, as I recognized the caller to be my buddy from school, "Yep, I'm ready. I just barely finished setting up my Nervegear console. This is going to be awesome!"

"I know, right?"

Suddenly, a thought came to mind, "Hey, are you still using your usual username for ELO?"

"Nah, I'm going to use DarkenedSky for this game, or Sky for short. I stopped using my last user name a while ago, since everybody keeps mispronouncing it."

I couldn't help but chuckle, "Yeah, wasn't it in Russian?"

"Yeah, but it still sounded cool. So, what's your username?"

"Oh, the same as always. I've always liked Shadowflame as my name." I shrugged, "Oh, well. But are you going to set your OC as your avatar, or are you just going to ponify yourself?"

"I don't know. I think I'm just going to ponify myself, but if I don't like how it looks, then I'll fall back on my OC."

I thought for a moment, "Yeah, I think I'll do that to." I looked back at my clock, which read 11:57. "Look, it's almost time to go. When you get into the game, if you finish choosing your pony first, just wait for me."

"All right. Bro-hoof."

I grinned, "And let's bro-hoof in the game, when we actually have hooves. See ya in a bit." With that I hung up and set my phone down on my desk. I glanced back at my clock and it read 11:58. I smiled, "I guess I can start right now."

I picked up the Nervegear helmet and stuck it on my head, fastening it with the chin strap. Though I had to admit, it was quite comfortable. Once I fastened the chin strap, I laid down on my back on my bed. I flicked the helmet's power switch on and the console hummed as it came alive.

As the console was starting up, the glass eye protector of the helmet lit up like a clear, computer monitor.as it prepared to take me into the game. Within a few seconds, the game was ready to go, but it would only start when it was activated by my voice.

I took a deep breath as I glanced at the clock inside the helmet's visor. It said 11:59. My grin widened, "Only one minute left."

I waited, and time seemed to slow down in anticipation for the game. I took a few deep breaths as I waited, but then suddenly, the clock changed to show 12:00.

I shouted the command to the system, "Link Start!"

The inside of the helmet seemed to come alive as lights and colors of all kinds swept through my vision. Suddenly, Five bars of text appeared, showing the progress on the start-up of the console.




Sight: Ok
Hearing: Ok
Smell: Ok
Taste: Ok
Touch: Ok




The text bars disappeared and another text box appeared:




Language: English

User Name: Shadowflame

Password: ***********




The text box disappeared as the console signed me into my account. Suddenly, my entire vision went black, displaying white text:




Welcome to Equestria Legends Online




The text disappeared and I found myself standing in a completely dark place, with only a small spotlight shining down in front of me. More text appeared,



	Now you must choose your avatar. Select which pony race you would like:



A small box appeared in front of me:



	-Earth Pony
-Pegasus
-Unicorn



I raised an eyebrow, "No alicorns, huh?" I shrugged, "Oh, well. I guess they didn't want anybody to be too overpowered." I reached out with a finger and tapped the unicorn button.

Suddenly the screen changed:



	What would you like your avatar to be?

-Ponified self
-OC



I touched the "ponified" button, making the box disappear. Soon it was replaced by:



Please hold still.



Suddenly, a large beam of blue light shone down on me. I tried not to move, but I couldn't help but try to see where the light was coming from. But after a few seconds, the light withdrew from me and like wisps of smoke, it weaved itself into the spotlight in front of me. The light began to wrap itself up, taking the form of a translucent pony.

After it took shape, the light subsided, revealing a dark gray unicorn stallion with a dark red mane and tail, almost completely black. I examined the pony, or rather myself as a pony, and it wasn't too shabby. It looked pretty cool, not like any really bad OC's I've seen before.

Suddenly, another window popped up in front of me:


	Please make your cutie mark


In the window, it had a open box, along with several icons for designing, sort of reminding me of my old Photoshop application. I had a bit of experience with art, so making my cutie mark was easy. I used my finger to draw out a picture of fire. Not like a camp-fire, but just fire.

Once I hit the "Ok" button in the window, the cutie mark flew out of the window stuck itself on the flanks of my pony self.

I looked at my pony with a bit of satisfaction. It looked pretty good for a ponified version of me.





The window in front of me changed again:


Is this design acceptable?


I touched the "Ok" button, and the window withdrew from me. Suddenly, a voice sounded out from nowhere, "Now that you have chosen your pony, you may now enter Equestria."

A bright light suddenly swept through the dark place, blinding me for a moment. Before I entered the game, I heard the voice say, "Good luck."


_____________________________________________________________________________________


When the light subsided, I found that I was standing on all fours. I looked down at my feet to see that they had been replaced by hooves, covered in gray fur. Although most people might've disgruntled by the fact their hands were gone, I wasn't. I grinned as I moved my hooves around like I would have with a normal arm or leg, "It worked. I'm in Equestria."

I looked around to find that I was in the town square of Ponyville, the starting town for the game. Around me, several other players were appearing as ponies as they logged into the game as well.

But with the more players that came in, the more anxious I was to get going. I wanted to explore the town right away, but I still had to wait for Sky.

Suddenly, I heard a voice call out to me, "Hey, Shadow!"

I turned to see a dark cyan unicorn stallion running towards me. He had a black mane in a style that reminded me of DJ Pon3's (or Vinyl Scratch's, if that's what you prefer). His cutie mark looked like some sort of dark magic circle, which was fairly detailed, I might add. Above his head, there was a player ID that read: Darkened5ky.



	

I grinned, "Hey, I see you went with your OC."

Sky smiled, "Yeah, I didn't like the look of myself ponified. My OC was better looking anyway."

I shrugged, "I guess that's true. So what are we going to do first?"

Tapping a hoof to his chin, Sky thought for a moment, "We should probably explore around town first, just so we know where everything is."

I nodded, "Right." Sky turned around as he began to walk (or rather trot) down a street adjacent to the town square. What do you know? Me, a human, trotting down a street as a unicorn. Life certainly can be dandy.

Anyways, I began to follow Sky, but after about five steps I tripped over myself and face-planted in the dirt road. So much for life being dandy.

I groaned as I got myself up, "Ouch. I guess walking with four legs is harder than with two."

I looked up to see Sky laughing his head off. He smirked at me, "Nice one."

I rolled my eyes, "Whatever. How did you get the hang of walking with hooves anyways?"

Sky shrugged, "Well, it's just like how you would crawl normally, but try walking on your hind legs instead of your knees."

I thought to myself for a bit about his reply, "Um, okay. I'll try." And so, we both began to walk down the street again, and this time I didn't fall over, although I did stumble once or twice.... Okay, fine. I did fall over again. But at least I got walking down by the time we reached another street.

But as we walked, a thought came to mind, "Hey, do you know how to use magic? It'd be useful to know how, since we're both unicorns."

Sky looked at me, "Um, yeah. I heard some other players say that there was a guide book in every player's inventory. Hold on a minute."

We both stopped and I watched Sky raise a hoof, quickly flicking his wrist down. As he flicked his hoof down, a small window appeared in front of him, displaying his player menu. He tapped a few buttons on his menu until he reached his inventory list. As he looked at it, Sky nodded, "Yeah, there's a guide for the game in general, but there's another one for unicorn spells."

I opened up my player's menu and went into my inventory as well. But before I opened my inventory, I looked at my current stats. I was only at level one, and all of my stats were pretty low, but I didn't care. I had just barely started the game, so what else was I supposed to do? I could fight some monsters in the game and gain some experience points, but right now I just needed to get a hang of the basics.

After looking at my stats, I opened up my inventory. Sure enough, the only things in there were the two manuals that Sky had mentioned. I touched the icon for the magic manual, and a book suddenly appeared in front of me. I was barely able to grab it before it dropped out of the air, which was difficult with hooves.

I sat down on my haunches, which to my surprise came very naturally, and flipped open my book, "Okay, let's see if there's a levitation spell in here. I don't want to have to try and carry everything with my hooves or my mouth."

I looked over at Sky to see that he'd taken out his book as well, "Good idea. Plus, we could learn a couple of combat spells for later. I want to try and fight a couple of monsters today."

I perked up at that, "Speaking of which, I heard a couple of people online back home say you shouldn't fight monsters on magic alone. You should at least have a weapon of some sort to fall back on."

Sky nodded, "Yeah, that sounds good. I think there's a weapons stand around town somewhere. Did you find the levitation spell yet?"

I scanned through the book until my eyes rested on the spell I was looking for, "Found it. It's on page 7."

Sky flipped through his book, meanwhile I read the description on the spell:

The levitation spell will enable you to carry any object with magic. When used on smaller items, your magic meter will not deplete as it would with other spells. To use the levitation spell, focus on the desired object that you wish to levitate. You need to know what object you are levitating, and where you want it to go. Focus on these two aspects, and the spell should work easily. Be keep in mind that when the object is heavier, it will take some physical strain on yourself, as well as drain your magic meter if the object's mass is too great.

I raised an eyebrow, "That's it? Doesn't seem too hard. Let's try it out." I stood up, leaving my book on the ground as my test object. Following the directions in the book, I focused on the book, willing it to rise up to my face height. As I concentrated, I felt a warm pulse flow from my horn as it glowed in red aura, signaling that I was using magic. And sure enough, my open book was surrounded in the same red aura and it lifted off of the ground.

I smiled with satisfaction, "Hey, I did it. That wasn't too hard. How did you do?" I looked over at Sky to see his horn glowing with black aura and his book also floating by him.

"I'm good. This is easy, but I bet the other spells are going to be harder."

I nodded, "Right. Hey, let's go find the weapon's shop. The game does start you out with some money to spend."

"Really? How much?"

I looked at my player menu, "Um... It looks like we get 200 bits each."

"Great, let's go get some weapons."

We both put our books back into our inventories and continued to walk through town. As we walked, we saw several other players pass us along the road. It was very clear that more and more players were logging into the game, but I just hoped that the town wouldn't be too crowded whenever I played. Ponyville, after all, was known to be small, and I knew that over a thousand bronies had bought the game.

But Ponyville was only the starting point in the game, and as soon as you were in Equestria, you could travel to several different cities and towns, including Manehatten, Canterlot, and even the Crystal Empire. As soon as that thought came to mind, my worrying about Ponyville being crowded subsided. I figured I'd leave town eventually as well.

Sky pointed a hoof out in front of us, stopping me in my tracks, "Hey, over there."

I followed his hoof until I saw a single stand that stood in the middle of an alleyway, just a couple of feet away. Even from where I stood, I could plainly see several weapons on the stand's display racks.

Sky and I walked up to the stand, and the stallion behind the counter asked, "May I help you?"

I smiled at him, even though I knew that he was just an NPC (An artificial intelligence, for anybody who doesn't understand what that is.), "Hey, we just need to buy some weapons."

The stallion nodded, "Right, feel free to look around. Tell me what you want when you're ready."

I thanked the store owner and turned to look at the inventory of weapons. Even though it was a small stand, it surprised me that there were *a lot* of weapons. Although, the game worked like any regular game with weapons because you had only two "hands" to hold weapons with. This meant you could hold two weapons at once if they're small enough.

The shop had a vast assortment of weapons, ranging from swords, to daggers, to shields, to even giant hammers. Because there were so many weapons, I was having trouble deciding what I wanted to use. As I looked through the weapons, testing out different ones, I glanced sideways at Sky, "Hey, what do you think I should get?"

Sky shrugged as he fiddled around with some of the swords, "I don't know about you, but I know what I want. I'll get two of these swords." He held up a pair of double-bladed swords for me to see.

"All right, you can buy those right now while I'm deciding what to get."

Sky nodded and turned to the owner of the stand to purchase his swords. Meanwhile, I was running through my thoughts for what I wanted in a weapon.

I wanted something that I could easily use with levitation or just with my mouth if the situation called for it, which narrowed down my choices to the one-hoof weapons. Out of the one-hoof weapons, I wanted something simple, like a sword or a hammer, but I still wanted something that'd be effective in hard fight, so I chose a single double-edged sword. But that left me with room for one more weapon, and I wanted something that could provide defense, so I chose a wooden shield.

Once I had my weapons chosen, I turned to the shop owner just as Sky finished buying his weapons. Sky stepped away from the stand, levitating two swords in their sheathes.

I began to purchase my weapons, "Okay, I'll take one of those short swords and one wooden shield."

The stand owner retrieved one of his swords, in its sheath, and a round wooden shield, placing them on the counter, "Okay, that'll be 80 bits."

As soon as he said that, a small window appeared in front of me:


	Will you purchase these items for 80 bits?
-Yes
-No


I tapped the "Yes" button with my hoof, and the money appeared on the stand's counter. The stand owner took the money and held out my weapons, "Thank you, enjoy these while you can."

I thanked the owner and grabbed my weapons with levitation and went back to join Sky. When I turned around, I saw that Sky had already equipped his weapons on him, seeing as he now had two swords strapped on his back, the hilts protruding from either side of his neck.

Sky looked at the weapons that I held, "So, you got those?"

I nodded as I opened up my player menu, "Yeah, I figured that I might as well have some defense in fighting, unlike you, seeing as you just have two swords." I opened up my inventory to see that both of my new weapons were in there.

Sky shook his head, "Well, actually, who says that you need a shield to be defensive? I've seen enough movies to know that's not necessarily true."

I tapped a hoof on my weapons in my inventory, equipping them to my character. My weapons that I held with levitation suddenly vanished and then reappeared, strapped to my back like Sky's. I turned to Sky, "All right, as long as that works for you. I don't know about you, but I want to try out my weapons on some monsters."

Sky nodded, "Right, let's go right now. I heard that there are a few low-level monsters in the Everfree Forest."

I grinned, "Great. Let's see if we can gain a few levels today."

With that, we both turned and headed through town, towards the general direction of the forest.


_____________________________________________________________________________________


I breathed hard as I ran through the forest, with my sword and shield drawn. I held them both with levitation while I galloped hard away from the Timberwolf that was pursuing me. The wolf was only a few feet behind me, but I was just barely able to keep out of its reach.

"Come on, Sky! Today would be nice!" I shouted out behind me. You see, our plan for taking down this timberwolf was for me to fight it first, bring down its health, and then run as bait. And while the wolf was distracted by me, Sky would come up from behind and finish it off. But I had been running for a good five minutes and Sky hadn't done anything yet.

But just as the Timberwolf was about to take a large bite out of my hind legs, Sky leaped out from the side and tackled the wolf away from me. With the wolf no longer pursuing me, I stopped and ran back towards the monster to see Sky quickly slashing the wolf with a flurry of sword strokes. Everywhere he hit, red lines of code appeared on the wolf, showing where he had struck.

Before I reached Sky to help, he had delivered the final blow, making the wolf cry out as it disintegrated into tiny bits of code, that eventually vanished in the air. As soon as I reached Sky, I window appeared in front of him:



	
Level Up!
Lv. 2  ->  Lv. 3




Sky pumped a hoof into the air, "Oh, yeah. Level three."

I rolled my eyes, "Whatever. You only got most of the experience because you actually killed it. I did most of the damage, but I'm still at level two." I looked at my health meter, and I had taken some damage during the past few hours that we had been fighting monsters, so my health meter was down to 5/6th full. I looked at Sky's health meter, which was floating above his head. He had been more head-on while we fought, which made him take more damage, resting his health meter at about 2/3rd full.

Sky shrugged as he sheathed his swords, "Well, next monster we fight, I'll let you get the experience from it."

I put away weapons as well, "All right, fine. But we'll have to do it tomorrow. It's getting dark and the time here works just like the time back home. Which means..." I opened up my player menu and looked at the time, "... It's 6:30 back home."

Sky's eyes went wide, "Oh, shoot. My mom said that I needed be back for dinner at 6:00. Ah, man, she's gonna literally pinch my head off. I'm gonna log out right now. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, meet me back in the town square tomorrow, at around 4:00."

Sky nodded, "4:00, got it. See ya." He opened his player menu as he prepared to log himself out. But he froze, wide-eyed as he looked at his menu, making me curious,

"What's wrong? Aren't you going log out?"

Sky just kept staring at his menu, "Um... I would, except the log out button isn't here."

I raised an eyebrow, "Really? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm positive. It's not there. See, check your menu."

I opened up my menu and scrolled down to where the log out button was... or rather, where it should have been. Sure enough, it wasn't there. "What the- Where is it?"

Sky shook his head, "Told ya." He thought for a moment, "Maybe we can't log out in places like the forest. I think if we went back to town, we'd be able to log out there."

I shook my head, "No, I don't think so. The game makers themselves said that you could log out in just about any place, even in places filled with monsters."

"Then what the heck is going on?!"

I paused, "I don't know, but if we-" I didn't get the chance to finish my sentence, because at that moment, Sky and I were enveloped by a bright blue light. I couldn't see anything, not the forest, not Sky, not even my own hoof in front of my face.

Suddenly, the light subsided, and Sky and I found ourselves in the middle of Ponyville's town square. I looked around the square, helplessly confused, to see my self surrounded by other players who were just as confused as I was. Almost the entire square was filled with bronies, and I could see pinpricks of blue light throughout the square as even more players were being brought in.

"All of us were teleported here?" I muttered, "What's happening?"

Suddenly, the blue lights in the square subsided as they finished bringing in the last of the players in the game. Everyone was just as confused as the next person in the square, but then a voice called out, louder than the combined volume of the crowd,

"Gamers and Players, May we have your attention please!"

The entire crowd quieted down as they turned to see four alicorns flying in the air above the square. Each of them were different in color and in size, but only one seemed to be the leader, which had been the one who had spoken earlier. The lead alicorn was the largest of the four. His fur was a bright red with a long white mane and tail that flowed out behind him, giving him a more commanding presence.

The lead alicorn cleared his throat and addressed the crowd, "Everyone, we are the administrators of Equestria Legends Online. We are in charge of analyzing the system and keeping it running in top condition. However, right now we are experiencing several technical difficulties in the system. One of which, as some of you might have noticed, was the absence of the log out button in your player menus. This is a major problem, since there is no other way for anyone to leave the game. We do not know the cause for this malfunction, but please bear with us as we try to fix this problem. While we try to find what's causing this, for your own safety, please remain in the Ponyville square for the time being."

This news brought up several outbursts in the crowd. Everypony began to converse to each other, as they tried to guess what might've happened or what would happen. One lone pegasus suddenly flew up into the air, yelling out for everyone in the square, "What do you mean you don't know what the problem is?!"

The lead alicorn shook his head, "This problem isn't from a lack in the system, so we don't know where the problem might have originated."

Suddenly, the entire square was plunged into darkness. Everyone broke out into chaos as they had lost their ability to see anything. But during the chaos of the darkness, another voice chuckled evilly, sending a shiver through my spine, "Oh, I think that I might know what the problem is."

My eyes widened in surprise. I knew that voice, and I was sure that everyone else did as well. Suddenly, lighting struck through the darkness, partially lighting it. The voice swept through the crowd again, "That would be me."

Another crack of lighting sounded, lighting the square completely for everyone to see the source of the voice. Flying high above the crowd was a character that any brony should know. Everyone stared in awe or shock as they gazed up at the  familiar draconequus, the being of chaos, Discord.

Discord laughed evilly at the crowd below him, "Hello, my little bronies." He turned his head towards the admin alicorns who were flying in the air on the other side of the square, "And hello to you, my good administrators."

The lead alicorn glared at Discord, "How can you be the cause of the problem? You are a program in the system that we designed ourselves. You may have partial control of Equestria, but you don't have the power to change the layout of the system completely."

Discord snapped his fingers, making himself vanish. But then he reappeared behind the lead alicorn, "Oh, but you already know the answer to that. You designed me to be exactly like the 'me' in your television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." He suddenly appeared next to me, making me jump a good foot into the air, "That really is a terrible name for a show, don't you think?"

Before I could answer, Discord snapped his fingers and reappeared riding on one of the admin's backs, "You see, you gave me control over reality in Equestria. But with this power, I hacked into the rest of the system, giving me power over the entire program. Oh, and to make sure that I stay in power, " He snapped his fingers and in a flash, the admin alicorns' horns and wings disappeared, making them plummet into the crowd below, while Discord still floated in the air.

Discord laughed evilly, "Now the admins are just plain earth ponies, and I've also taken power over their admin codes. They won't be able to do a thing to change my world. As for all of you, I will let you keep your wings and horns while you play in a game of mine."

The crowd burst in outrage towards Discord, but the draconequus simply snapped his fingers, literally zipping all of the mouths of the players shut. "My, I haven't even told you what the game is, and you're already anxious to get started. The game that I have in mind is a bit of a scavenger hunt. I have taken the Elements of Harmony and placed them all in secret hiding places, inside and outside of Equestria. Your job is to find the Elements and use them to reach me. There, we will have a fight to the death. If you manage to retrieve the elements and defeat me, then I will allow everyone to log out."

He lowered his head just over the crowd, "But it won't be as easy as you think, you see I've added a few features to the game. In the original system, if you died in the game, you would instantly re-spawn in the last town you were in. But that's too boring for me, so I re-wrote the system so when anyone died, their avatar would be lost, and their Nervegear Helmet in the real world will fry their brains. In shorter words, if you die in the game, you will die in the real world."

A collective gasp pulsed through the crowd. Discord laughed as he drew a line across his neck, making his head slide off of his neck and into his hand. The dismembered head laughed as it looked down at the terrified crowd, "No need to lose your head over it." He began to laugh even more, "And also, if there is any tampering with the helmet in the outside world, the helmet will kill the player instantly. Actually, quite a few of players have already died this way."

Everybody, including myself, gasped in shock. I couldn't believe it, "People have... already died?"

Discord continued, "Now, in this game, there are a few rules. First, you cannot receive help from the outside world, that is, if you can even manage that. If I catch anypony communicating to the outside world, all of you will die. Second, any tampering with the system from inside the game, the rule-breaker will die instantly."

Discord chuckled, "And just so you know, I have a couple of monster friends who want to go out of their designated areas, so I'm letting them roam a bit. Maybe you'll meet them when you go out of town, but they won't follow you into a city or town. They hate crowded places."

The draconequus laughed evilly, "But a few of you might have thought, 'There's only six elements, so this will be easy.' Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble," Discord suddenly, belched out a bubble that was bigger that the length of his body, "But I thought that only six elements would be boring. So I added four new elements." He poked the oversized bubble with a claw, causing it to burst and reform into ten smaller bubbles. "They will be hidden all over Equestria, but they will be guarded by my favorite kinds of monsters, just like a boss of each element."

"If you find the element, and defeat its guardian in a boss battle, then you may walk away with it in hoof. But I must warn you, my guardians are no push-overs."

Lighting struck again behind Discord, "Well, there you have it. So just remember, your lives are on the line, not mine." He laughed loudly, making lighting strike behind him again, "So, my little bronies, let the games begin!" The sky suddenly was filled with thunder and lightning, blinding everyone as Discord laughed maniacally. When the lightning subsided, Discord was gone, only his laughter echoed through the streets of Ponyville.

Everyone was awestruck, including me. I turned to look at Sky, "What... just happened?"

Sky shook his head, "I think... this is more than a game now."

I nodded, "This has become... murder."