"Ugh. Do we have to do this, fair sister?" Princess Luna, sovereign of the night, co-ruler of Equestria, disgustedly asked her older sister, Princess Celestia.
The two alicorns were being driven on their royal chariot from the capital, Canterlot, to the elected host of the Summer Sun Celebration, Ponyville: an honor for such a small town to have after only hosting a prior Celebration merely a couple of years ago.
"I don't know why you're complaining, Luna." Celestia calmly replied, her regal, multi-colored mane flowing in its own breeze. "It was custom before you... you were banished that both princesses had to attend the celebration of the longest day of the year."
Grimacing slightly, Luna answered, "I know it is tradition Tia, but it was never a favorite of mine, and it continues to be so."
An awkward silence ensued for a couple of minutes. Luna was thankful that Twilight Sparkle and her friends used the Elements of Harmony to rescue her from her deep jealousy that she had for her sister's day, and she asked for forgiveness and forgave Celestia herself after the matter, but the issue of her banishment was still a tender subject.
Breaking the stillness, Celestia glanced over at her navy blue sister, "Perhaps I could make it up to you?"
Her ears perking up slightly, Luna curiously asked, "What dost you suggest?"
Chuckling at her sister's archaic form of speech, Celestia stated, "My student Twilight has sent me a letter informing me that, at the insistence of her friends, she has bought the latest console from Sillycon Ridge, a place outside of Los Pegasus where many technology corporations have research and development labs."
"What was needed that required her to travel so far?" Luna inquired.
"Luna, there are stores where these devices are sold."
"Oh."
"What she bought was a PlayStable 3, a home entertainment system by Pony Corporation." Celestia said, turning her attention back to watch the decent into Ponyville.
"What doth this... PlayStable 3 do?" Luna wondered, turning her head to look at her sister.
"You put compact discs into it and then play a computer program that puts you into new worlds, scenarios, and times." Her sister answered, still gazing ahead.
Luna pondered on that tidbit of information. She had heard of many of the changes in how ponies went about their day to day lives. Using many new technological breakthroughs, ponies no longer used candles and fires to light their homes at night, using something called "electricity" to power "light bulbs" to illuminate their homes, allowing them to stay up well after Celestia's sun had set. That was something Luna most approved of, but she had also heard of the relatively new breakthrough of personal computers, devices used to create, store, and manipulate data, as well as to execute these programs that Celestia had been talking about.
"What wouldst thou suggest I do?" Luna asked.
"I could ask Twilight to invite you when she and her friends have recouped from the festivites to try the new system: she only got it yesterday, and hasn't had a chance to try it." Celestia replied as she and Luna stepped off of the chariot.
"I... suppose I could try, perhaps it could be more fun?"
"It will be fun, Luna." Celestia snickered at her sister's innocent enthusiasm. "I have one myself, and some of the 'video games' that it has are quite entertaining."
***
"Art thou sure this is a good idea, Tia?" Luna nervously asked as she stood at the entrance of Twilight's tree library. "I am not so sure that I like this."
"It will be fine, you can spend the night with Twilight and her friends, and I'll send a chariot for you tomorrow morning," Celestia reassured her younger sister. "They won't bite. Plus, they're probably already waiting; it isn't very often that royalty spends time more like common ponies."
After a few seconds of anxious silence, Luna gulped, and knocked on the library's door.
Pounding of hooves were heard, and a muffled voice called out, "Spike! Can you get that? It's probably Princess Luna!"
"Why don't you answer it?!" a tired voice called from elsewhere in the library.
Giving her older sister a rather candid and unimpressed look, Luna turned her attention back to the doorway as it creaked open and a weary purple baby dragon stood in the opening. Not yet fully awake, he grumpily said, "Whatever it is, we don't want it." and then slammed the door in their faces.
Inside, the purple unicorn Twilight Sparkle rushed up the stairwell from the basement, and not seeing anypony, turned to Spike, who was slowly making his way up the steps to the bedroom, "Who was it Spike?"
Looking back at her, he replied, "Two salesponies, I think. It looked like they were selling fur dye and wigs to look like the princesses." He paused, thinking over the statement, then jumping three feet into the air, he exclaimed, "The PRINCESSES?!"
Bolting for the door, he went barreling through the now open entrance and smack into Celestia's leg.
"Sorry about this," Twilight apologized, embarrassment lighting up her features. "It's past his bedtime, he must've still had cobwebs in his head." she said as she noticed the baby dragon dazedly get off the ground from where he fell after slamming into the sun princess.
"It is fine, fair Twilight." Luna stated dignifiedly, bowing her head to the unicorn and then entering the main floor of the library.
"Thank you for doing this, Twilight," Celestia said, bending down to eyelevel with her student. "Luna wasn't very happy about coming to the festival. She has been somewhat of an annoyance, waiting for tonight; I hope this will cheer her up."
"We'll do our best, Princess." Twilight reassured.
"Make sure things don't get too out of hoof." the alicorn replied as she got on her royal chariot. Giving a wave to Twilight, Celestia told the two pegasus guards to take her back to Canterlot.
"I pray thee, Twilight, where hast thou set up your... PlayStable?" Luna called from inside the library.
"I've just finished setting it up downstairs." Twilight answered as she closed the door to face the midnight blue princess.
"Are thy friends downstairs, too?" Luna inquired.
"You're the first to arrive: Rarity had to drop off her sister with their parents, Applejack had some last minute things on the farm to do, Fluttershy wanted to do a final check on her animals, and Rainbow Dash... I don't know where she is actually." Twilight said, rubbing her chin in thought.
Suddenly the door to the library burst open, and a rainbow streak shot into the opposite wall, leaving an impact crater, and stirring up much dust.
A form fell out of the crater, the pony getting up being Rainbow Dash. She groggily shook her head before taking notice of the two observers. "Hey Twilight." she said, a little unsteadily before recognizing Princess Luna. Scrambling to her hooves, Rainbow bowed quickly to her, "P-Princess Luna!"
"You may dispense with the formalities, fair Rainbow Dash. I am here to have... fun. Just like you." Luna stated with a gesture of her hoof.
Being stuck with a vocabulary of a thousand years ago wasn't very conducive for understanding ponies, Luna had discovered. The first Nightmare Night after her return had been rather disastrous, partly because of the town's fear of her, and her inability to fully communicate with the townsfolk despite what she learned from Celestia. "Fun" was one word that she hadn't learned until that night, and it took her some time to understand the full meaning of it.
Rainbow Dash shot a surprised look at Twilight, unaware that they would be entertaining Luna.
"Why don't we head to the basement? I've finished moving everything and setting up the TV and PlayStable." Twilight suggested.
Agreeing, the two ponies followed her down to what used to be the basement laboratory where Twilight conducted many experiments for both Celestia herself, and just plain curiosity. Now all the equipment had been moved to the far wall, and set up in the middle of the room was a large, flat-screen TV, something Luna learned was invented a fair time before she returned to Equestria. Beside the TV, a rectangular, glossy black box with a chrome finish along its edges sat on the floor, wires and cables connecting it to the electrical socket in one of the walls and to the television.
Along the wall that was created by the staircase, were a small fridge and a plush, crimson couch that could easily hold three ponies. On its cushions sat four sticks with circles along the ends and two smaller circles along the bottom edge, two small sticks with circular pads jutting out from them. The two larger circles contained four buttons each, the one on the left had arrows pointing inward from their directional facing, and the other containing buttons with an x, o, square, and triangle. Luna perceived that they also had two thick rounded sticks coming from the bottom of where the two large circles were, and supposed they were for flair.
"This is sick, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed elatedly, inspecting the box, which Luna assumed was the PlayStable.
"Well, it better be worth it, Dash," the unicorn replied, turning on the PlayStable and then trotting over to the fridge. "We better use it a lot because it cost over 700 bits, not to mention me having to move all my equipment and buy this fridge."
Faintly from upstairs, came the sound of a hoof rapping on the door to the library. As Twilight scrambled up the stairs to answer the caller, Luna sat down on the couch, using her magic to move the sticks, which, when she asked Rainbow Dash, she found out that they were referred to as controllers. She then turned her awareness to the TV screen as it lit up with a small, white silhouette of a pony, with a single option below the menu which said:
"Log in: No users found. Create new user?"
Before Luna could decide what to do, Twilight returned with the rest of her friends down the stairs. Greeting the moon princess, the other ponies found spots to sit on the floor or couch facing the TV.
Quickly grabbing a controller with her magic, Twilight thought quietly for a moment before confirming the option to create a new user, and used the "analog sticks" as they were called, to navigate the new menu which had all the letters of the alphabet, as well as commonly used characters and numbers going from zero to nine.
Realizing that she was thinking of a name to type before entering this screen, Luna watched as Twilight entered the name "Starswirler858" into the box. After confirming Twilight's decision, the menu changed to show a row of white images: the same silhouette of a pony, a toolbox, a camera, a piece of a reel of moving picture film, a music note, a rough image of the planet of Equestria, a picture of one of the controllers, and multiple silhouettes of ponies, all sitting around different television screens.
Swiftly moving to the image of the controller, Twilight asked Rainbow Dash if she could give her the game "Mares of Duty: Pony Ops".
Snatching said box, Rainbow Dash gave it to Twilight, who opened it and took out a thin disc, which she then put into the now open disc tray. She then pressed a button beside the tray, and watched as it slid back into the console.
Giving a slight whir, the PlayStable's menu icon changed to the same cover art of the game: a backlit muscular stallion sitting on the ground and holding two stick-like weapons with handles and two additional longer stick-like weapons strapped to his back.
Luna remembered the weapons were called guns, more specifically handguns and assault rifles. While Equestria had not been at war for generations, weapon scientists still developed more and more deadly arms.
"Who wants to try this first with me?" Twilight asked.
Instantly Rainbow Dash volunteered, followed by Applejack, the two ponies continuing their friendly rivalry.
"Would you like to try, Princess?"
"Nay, Twilight. I will let somepony else try. I will watch and observe your actions." Luna answered.
Pinkie Pie piped up, "I'll play! This looks like it could be fun!"
Handing the bubbly pony the final controller, Twilight sighed, "All right, let's go!" Clicking the icon of the game, she confirmed that she wanted to start, and the screen faded to black.