//------------------------------// // Let the Games Begin // Story: Ponies Vs. Monsters: More Friendly Games // by TimeBomb0 //------------------------------// Author's Note: This is a sequel to my previous Pinkie Pie story Friendly Games, and while I wouldn't say it's a necessary read, I still encourage you to read it before this story. ************************************* Unable to move, all you can do is stare at the sky while your heart pounds against your chest in panic. There was truly no turning back; either you would find glory or an early grave. Most likely the early grave. In the few seconds you have left, you witness the magical barrier give one last glow before it finally dissipates completely. You vaguely hear somepony yell “Charge!” along with the sounds of a veritable army’s worth of hooves and screams rushing towards you. Before, you would have considered the impossibility of escape from them as the scariest thing you have ever felt. However, what moments of fear you would have felt from the masses charging towards you pales to the terror that grips your mind now. “This is it!” yells the mare who had gotten you into this mess, “Are you ready!?” “Not really!” you shout back as if you had a choice. “Too late!” is the last thing you hear her say. Though you can’t see her, you can feel the pressure around you shift as she raises her hoof towards the sky... ...before bringing it down on the aptly-labelled “Party!” button. *BOOM!* ************************************* BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGG! The infernal noise causes you to utter a tired and frustrated groan as you stir your sleepy limbs. In a rehearsed move that you have done in your sleep before by accident, you throw your foreleg out and force it down on the source of the purposely obnoxious racket. At once, the ringing stops, and the room falls into a heavenly silence. Sighing to yourself, you let your limb slide off the alarm clock as you feel yourself falling back to a pleasant sleep. You briefly wonder why you ever set your alarm this early; you almost always go back to sleep anyway, instead preferring to officially get out of bed after having to hit the snooze button an extra two or three times. Now that you think of it, it also happens to be the weekend, which meant that you didn’t have to get up until later to go to work at the café anyway, and it’s not like you ever had anything special planned for… …Oh, yeah, that’s right. You smile a little bit as you force your eyes open and look at the clock. Sure enough, it reads a time you normally don’t consider yourself able to wake up at and wouldn’t even try to if this was any other day. Today, however, was different, for it had a special event that you wouldn’t dare try to sleep through. Digging deep, you find the strength to throw the blankets off your bed and make your way into the bathroom to begin your morning rituals. Once there, you turn to open the medicine cabinet in your mirror to grab your brush, toothbrush, and toothpaste. With all of those items in hoof, you reach out and close the cabinet- “Hi there!” “GAAAAAAH!” …and nearly have a heart attack at the sight of a smiling pink pony in the mirror. Your toiletries go flying as you immediately spin around to confront the other pony in the room. Perhaps just as frighteningly, you don’t see her anywhere behind you, as if she was never there begin with. Mental stability…Minus thirty… You take the next few seconds to catch your breath while you lean on your sink. You’re definitely awake now, that’s for certain, but you still don’t know what to think. You don’t know what would be scarier: that you’re going insane, or that she actually was there… “Over here, silly!” Definitely the latter. You turn your head to the direction of the voice, which happened to be in the doorway of your bathroom. Sure enough, there she is, only a couple feet away from you: Pinkie Pie, Ponyville’s primary party-planner and perpetually peppy pink pony. “Pinkie…wha…how…” you try to talk, but this is all that comes out. You want to ask her a few questions, namely how she got into your flat and pulled off that mirror trick, but you’ve been caught too off-guard to form anything coherent. “You ready for the big game today?” Pinkie cuts you off. Looks like you’re not getting those answers today. “I know I am! I’ve been waiting weeks for today! I know it was only announced about a month ago, but that was still a really long month! I even wore my official socks to bed! I still have them on, see!?” She jabs a hoof almost straight into your face, and you finally notice the bright orange sock covering her leg up to the hock. The sock is adorned with a black target and the letters “PvM” written underneath, a logo you immediately recognize. You have a pair of socks just like these, kept in your drawers ever since buying them so you knew where they were for today. “That’s…what I was getting ready for when you came in, yes,” you slowly reply. “Really now?” asks Pinkie. “How are you preparing for it? Scope out the town? Get some jogging in? Drink a bunch of caffeine until time slows down and you can zip by in the blink of an eye like this?” Before you can even think to get a word in, Pinkie turns and sprints around your flat at near super-sonic speeds, giggling like crazy while somehow not knocking a single thing over in the process. The sprint only lasts a few seconds, and soon Pinkie comes to an immediate stop right in front of you again, still carrying her same eager smile while making a quick “Meep meep!” sound. “Uh…well, um…” you aren’t sure how to reply at her demonstration at first. “Um…well, I was going to start my preparations with a shower and a good teeth-brushing.” “Huh?” Pinkie looks at you quizzically. “How’s fresh breath going to help you win this game?” “Pinkie, I’ve only been awake for a couple minutes.” “Really? I thought you’d be super-excited for this game. It’s, like, right up your alley! Your perfect cup of tea! It’s right up the alley where you buy your perfect cup of tea!” “I am excited,” you reassure her, “I’m actually up a lot earlier than I would be on any day I don’t work. I just…” You pause for a second to take a much-needed yawn, “…need to get through my usual morning rituals first before I can worry about that.” “Oooooh, gotcha,” Pinkie finally understands, rubbing the back of her head with her hoof. “Hee hee, sorry about that. I guess I showed up just a bit too early. My friends tell me that sometimes I get a little too excited for my own good, but I think it’s better to be too happy than not at all, don’t you think?” “Erm…I guess so,” is all you can say back. “Me too!” she cheerfully replies, “So I’ll just you let take care of your shower and stuff, and I’ll hang out here and think up a super-duper fool-proof game-winning strategy!” “Sounds like a plan,” you say to her, “I’ll only be a few minutes. Go ahead and make yourself at home.” “Will do!” Pinkie says as you shut the bathroom door. With that dealt with, you decide that a good shower would help you relax a little from your surprisingly eventful morning. Turning on the showerhead, you step into your tub and get to scrubbing, letting your mind wander and your heart recover. This certainly wasn’t the first time Pinkie had surprised you like this. Ever since that fateful day where she declared her friendship with you, your life has been filled with a myriad of wacky hi-jinks. As she had promised, Pinkie had made several attempts to get you out of your flat more often and make some new friends. You’ve lost count of how many parties you’ve been roped into, regardless of their pretense, to get you to talk and have a good time with the other citizens of Ponyville. She had even turned you over to her friend, the lavender-coated owner of the Ponyville Library, on a few occasions, borrowing some of her friendship reports and letting you read them in the hopes that you would be inspired. Your progress so far has been...less than desired. While you had learned a thing or two about talking to others without looking dorky in the process, you had still yet to find a single pony outside of Pinkie who you would unquestionably consider to be your friend. It wasn’t all bad, though; the parties Pinkie threw were genuinely enjoyable, and you almost always ended up taking home most of the irresistible sweets and drinks that were available in spades. Best of all, they allowed you to spend more time with the one pony you actually do call “friend.” Despite how inappropriate they may be at times, you had secretly grown to enjoy Pinkie’s random acts of zaniness and attempts to bring joy to others. You especially envied her seemingly endless source of energy and happiness as well. Sure, it sometimes got to be a little too much (like…well, like just now), but it was something you just found endearing. Her ability to keep a cheery attitude in the face of anything, no matter what danger she had to overcome or who she was talking to was admirable, to say the very least. Maybe if I could somehow be more like that, you had found yourself thinking on more than one occasion. Who knows what would happen. Maybe I wouldn’t be so much of a shut-in. Maybe I could talk to other ponies without making a fool of myself. Maybe then she would… Realizing where your thoughts are going, you immediately return your attention to getting yourself cleaned up and the rest of your morning duties taken care of. You knew where this daydream was going to lead, and there’s no way you could start thinking those kinds of thoughts with her only a few feet away. Besides, she only thinks of you as a friend…right? …Maybe today will end up being like one of those really sappy stories, you quietly think as you shut off your showerhead and throw on your bathrobe, and we’ll end up kissing after something blows up in our face. You chuckle a little at the inanity of your imagination. The rest of your morning rituals go without any real noteworthy moments, although you doubt anyone could make something as mundane as teeth-brushing exciting. Feeling confident enough to take on the world with your fresh breath and clean mane, you open the door and step out into your flat. “I’m done Pinkie,” you call out to the mare in your house, “So how about that fool-proof plan?” For a worrying reason, you don’t get a response right away. “…Pinkie?” you nervously call out again. She could be at her most troublesome when nopony had any idea what she was up to… …Do you hear a choir? You finally get your answer as you remember the source of that heavenly music, and a thought of pure horror crosses into your mind. Unable to bear such a terrible prospect, you yell out the one thing you can in the hopes of stopping her from doing the unthinkable. “PINKIE! NOT MY SAVE FILE!” ************************************* “So…run this strategy by me one last time.” “It’s simple!” says Pinkie, immediately whipping out a paper covered in squiggly shapes and arrows from…somewhere and using her hoof as a pointer. “When the game starts, we immediately execute Code Alpha and head to Checkpoint Bravo at flank speed, then afterwards we sneak at half-flank speed two clicks south of Checkpoint Charlie! Once we talk to Charlie, we’ll tag a few tangos, buy a few mangoes, and then camp out at Checkpoint Delta until about 1600 hours have passed, at which point we make a full sprint until we reach the extraction point and secure all the goods before all that’s left are the bads!” “Um…are you sure you read the rules of the game right?” You ask, trying not to put too much thought into her so-called “plan.” “Hmm…” Pinkie pauses to look at her map before opening her eyes in surprise. “Whoopsies! This is my plan to be first in line for this year’s Cider Season. I must’ve left the plans for the game back at your house by mistake.” With a quick flick of her hoof, she throws the map behind her and then rubs the back of her head again. “Do you think we have time to run back and get our plans real quick?” “Doubt it,” you remark, “The game starts in a couple minutes, and we’re already close to the meeting point.” True to your word, you and Pinkie were now out and about in Ponyville, on your way to the town plaza where the game would soon begin. After successfully preventing Pinkie from ruining your save file on The Legend of Celestia: Stoneward Discord, the two of you had enjoyed a nice gourmet breakfast of Clop-Tarts and root beer while she began laying out the groundwork for “Operation Pie Eater”. You didn’t bother to ask where she came up with the name. “Heh heh, sorry. I guess I let my excitement get the better of me again,” apologizes Pinkie. “That’s alright,” you say, giving her a reassuring smile. “I hear this game gets really crazy, so it might be better if we didn’t try to stick to a plan anyway.” “Really?” Pinkie asks, “We’re just going to wing it?” “Looks that way,” you reply, “and besides, I’m sure as long as we stick together, we can’t lose.” “Together?” Pinkie asks as if she had never heard of the word before. “As long as we’re on the same side,” you joke. “That…sounds great!” shouts Pinkie, her bouncy attitude returning in a flash. “You know, sometimes it’s more fun to play something when you don’t go in with a plan! Makes it that much crazier and zanier and insanier and…hey look! There’s the plaza, and a whole buncha other ponies!” Turning your head to look forward, you see that the two of you have indeed arrived at the game’s designated started point. To your surprise, you notice a crowd of ponies is already there, gathered near a public stage and clad in the same orange socks that you and Pinkie are sporting. You hadn’t quite expected this many players, but this new information only excites you further. The more, the merrier, as they always say. As you and Pinkie find yourselves a nice spot in the crowd, you look around and begin identifying some of the players. You see that the earth ponies make up for most of the crowd, but a few pegasi and unicorns can also be spotted. You spot a pegasus with a rainbow mane carrying a determined look on her face, a leafy green unicorn who you know from work, a yellow pegasus standing in the back of the crowd huddled next to another colt, and even your own boss sporting his own pair of orange socks. I guess this game really is more popular than I thought, you think to yourself. “Attention, please! Your attention, please!” A voice breaks out through the crowd, causing everypony to stop their conversations and turn towards the stage. A tan-colored mare with a graying mane and yellow glasses now stands on the stage, not wearing any socks of her own. You recognize her as Ponyville’s mayor, and are once again surprised that someone of her stature is announcing for something so relatively minor. “First off,” she begins, “I want to thank everypony here for joining in on Ponyville’s first official game of Ponies Versus Monsters! From Fillydelphia to Trottingham, and even as far away as Witherton, PvM has taken Equestria by storm, and I am sure everyone here is glad for that, am I right?” Her declaration is met with a swift round of applause. “Secondly,” she continues once the cheering dies down, ”I want to extend my thanks to a certain few ponies today who helped make this game possible. The first pony I’d like to acknowledge is the unicorn who stitched together all the socks needed for the game, and who could not be here today for work-related reasons: Ponyville’s very own Rarity!” The crowd once again erupts into a cheer, clopping their collective hooves on the stone ground. “I would also like to thank the pony responsible for not only enchanting every single pair of sock to comply with the official rules, but also organizing the safe zones and the distribution of all the rulebooks: Miss Twilight Sparkle!” You take a quick glance at Twilight as another round of applause starts up. You can make out a sheepish smile on her face along with a faint trace of pink on her cheeks before your boss pats her on the back and says something that you don’t quite catch, especially with Pinkie yelling “WOOOOOOO!!!!” right next to your ear. “And now,” the mayor starts up again, “Before we begin, I’d like to go over the rules one last time so that everypony may stand a fair chance. If I may have Miss Sparkle and her friend to come up here and help me demonstrate…” The crowd collectively leans toward the stage as the two of them climb up the steps and join the mayor onstage. You have never seen people so enthusiastic about having to listen to rules before. “As the name says, this game is a match between the ponies and the ‘monsters’. One among you is a monster, a creature that looks like a pony but is out to hunt down everyone it sees and turn them into monsters as well. A simple tap with a hoof covered by a sock is all it takes…” At this, Twilight raises her limb into the air and taps the chef in the side. At once, a burst of light breaks out along with an audible “Poof!”, changing the socks’ color from a bright orange to a dull grey, the logo retaining its solid black color. “…to turn a regular pony into a monster,” concludes the mayor. “Once turned, a monster must wait two minutes after being tagged before they can begin to tag other ponies, at which point…” *Poof!* Thanks to Twilight’s magic, the socks on your boss turn into a full black, the logo taking on a grey color. “Not only this, but for the first half hour of the game, the original monster’s socks will remain as bright orange, allowing him or herself to blend in and tag as many ponies as possible.” “However,” she keeps talking, “the ponies have one advantage. After the first half hour of the game, certain parts of the town will be protected by a magical barrier. These areas are called ‘safe zones,’ places where no monster can enter and tag other ponies.” Run for the safe zones, look out for black socks, trust nopony, you run through a mental checklist. You had the rules almost memorized down to the letter, but you figure it’s better to be over-prepared than not at all. “However, ponies would do well to not confuse being in the safe zone with being home-free. Every fifteen minutes, the safe zones will change their locations, and they will disappear completely for the last thirty minutes of the game, meaning everypony will have to stay quick on their hooves if they don’t want to be tagged.” “The ponies who manage to last the entire game without being tagged will be declared the winners! Should all the ponies be tagged before time is up, then the winners will be the pony that survived the longest and the monster who tagged the most ponies!” “And finally, a few more important rules. To make this game fair for everyone, the use of magic and wings is forbidden.” At this, you notice the few stray pegasi in the air immediately drop to the ground while some of the unicorns put a special cap over their horns. You even spy the rainbow pegasus getting her wings tied to her body by an orange earth pony, with the rainbow one giving an annoyed look at her friend. “The official play area is entirely outside. Building interiors are strictly off-limits,” continues the mayor, “And I’m sure everypony here knows this one already, but the most important rule of Ponies Versus Monsters is…” “DON’T BE A SPOIL-SPORT!” The entire crowd, including you and Pinkie, recite the bolded and underlined rule in the official rulebook. “Oh my…” the mayor chuckles at the crowd’s enthusiasm. “Well, looks like you’re all ready to get this game started.” You bet I am, you mentally reply. “Hey, don’t forget!” “Huh?” you turn to the source of the voice. “Stick together, remember?” Pinkie reminds you of your promise. You had almost forgotten she was there for a second. “Right, stick together,” you reassure her. “Pinkie promise?” she holds a hoof up, wanting you to seal the deal with more than just words. “Pinkie promise,” you smile, raising your hoof to meet hers. “And now, Miss Sparkle, if you please…” the mayor requests. “Right away,” says the lavender mare onstage. Channeling her magic, Twilight launches a ball of pure magic energy high into the air. Once it’s safely out of range of any potential pegasi, the ball explodes in a glittery display that would make an Equestrian Independence Day display green with envy. “The five-minute grace period has begun!” shouts the mayor as all the ponies, including you and Pinkie begin to scatter about, looking for any hiding spot they can. “Let the games begin!”