Chapter 4 – Fourth Base
The next few weeks went by swiftly, the promise of the horizontal limbo forever burning in the distance, just waiting to be reached. Featherweight was becoming more sure of himself with each passing day, his so-called ‘competition’ making no progress in the slightest. It didn’t matter how much Scootaloo begged and pleaded; Button’s Mum didn’t believe a filly could get her cutie mark in gynaecology. Snips barely seemed to be trying anymore, gazing drearily at her plot while nursing a semi. No hope for him indeed.
Featherweight, on the other hoof, had been hard at work. Despite spending most evenings after school playing Four Spears with Button, he’d been training in secret at the local arcade, honing his DDR skills to perfection. With the help of a mysterious mentor by the name of Ebbin McFlow, (A trash-talking, no nonsense, hard balling private investigator with a heart of gold) Featherweight underwent several cheesy montages to become the DDR champion of Ponyville.
As always, there was the need to endure sessions of Four Spears with the ever commanding Button. Whenever he wasn’t spouting orders to the other players and crying with frustration at every loss, (or jumping for joy when finding a high-class item before effectively banning its use because ‘we might need it later on’ which effectively became ‘never’) he prattled on about some new gaming system called the Ponystation 4 that he’d gotten a chance to play at a rich uncle’s house. From what Featherweight could understand, he’d played a game called Hillzone Cattle Fall where you chase an often difficult to see orange circle until an owl scans the location of the next orange circle for you to find, all while blasting away at shouty stallions with laryngitis. It was supposedly very good, except for one stealth section that was seemingly designed by intellectually stunted foals who played hide and seek for five minutes and decided to make a game out of it.
Featherweight’s plan was simple. All he had to do was assimilate himself into the role of Button’s friend, all while enticing Button’s Mum along, which he hoped he was doing. And then, once the accursed Four Spears was dealt with, he would suggest a little trip to the arcade, inviting his beloved along for the ride. Once she witnessed his lightning quick dance moves to ‘End of The Century’ and ‘Dead End’ she’d have no choice but to divorce her (strangely absent) husband and leap into bed with him. Or maybe just the leaping into bed part. Featherweight couldn’t care less otherwise. It would almost be worth it just to hear Button call him ‘Dad.’ But mostly the part where he got to plunder country orange. That was crucial.
After several weeks of play, the four foals wielding the four spears had reached the game’s fourth and final enemy base, housing the final boss: a giant pink tentacle. Suffice to say, it was hard. Numerous attempts were made, only for the would-be heroes to get impaled against the walls over and over again.
“You guys keep breaking formation!” Button yelled, pointing accusingly at his comrades. “And what’s with your attack patterns? You can’t just rush in, pounding it as fast as you can right from the get-go! We begin slowly, and then build our pace. Otherwise it’ll just get irritated without weakening!”
“But my hoof is getting tired,” Scootaloo moaned, dropping the controller to the floor and rubbing her pained foreleg. “Can’t we take a break for a little while? Your Mum might need help with something.”
“For the hundredth time, no!” Button yelled. “We’re trying again, and this time, don’t screw up!”
Featherweight knew the real reason for their consistent failures. As far as Scootaloo and Snips were concerned, once the game was over, so was their chance to be around Button’s Mum. They would intentionally ruin the group’s chances of beating the final boss, hopeful that they could stay for as long as they could keep it up. Button had never referred to any of them as ‘friends’, only as ‘co-op partners.’ So what was stopping him from discarding them like unwanted pre-order codes that gave players extra weapons and significant advantages, thus ruining a potentially challenging and enthralling experience, just like the Duel Ex: Equine Revolution special edition? Nothing. They could be cast out at the drop of a teenage cheerleader’s plot. But Featherweight needed them to win, and at just the right time…
“Okay, let’s set things straight,” Button said as he stroked his chin, pacing back and forth in front of the three other foals. “There’s already a stallion in Japone who’s beaten the game on ‘New Game plus’ in full co-op mode, using one hoof per controller. And yet we are still struggling to even beat the last boss!”
“Oh, that’s just because he has no life,” Scootaloo harrumphed. “Anypony could do that if they gave up everything and practiced all day.”
“That’s irrelevant!” Button blasted. He pressed his hooves to his forehead. “And this is all just too much. When I asked you all to play this game with me, it was so I could finally enjoy it properly. But you know what? I’m not enjoying replaying the same gosh-darned boss over and over again. So I’m giving up. That’s it. Just go.”
The three foals gawped in unison. “What!?”
“I’ll just go back to playing solo,” Button said, rolling his eyes at the outburst. “I’ve read the walkthrough and apparently the AI reacts a lot better to the boss’s attack patterns.” He shook his head and sighed disinterestedly. “I just don’t need you anymore.”
“You can’t be serious!” Featherweight cried, already envisioning his plan slipping between his hooves. How can I go without seeing his Mum’s beautiful face and incredible flank? I can’t just spend the rest of my life in bed playing ‘make the white water come out’! It’s not enough!
“But… surely I can still come see you, right?” Scootaloo questioned, grabbing Button by the shoulders.
“What’s the point?” he said with a shrug.
“Oh please!” Scootaloo begged, latching onto Button with a vice-grip cuddle. “I can’t handle the thought of not being with you! You’re better than those cutie mark crusaders! You don’t write ‘Scootabuse’ fanfics when you think I’m not looking! Please!”
Button’s eyes darted across the room as he tried to formulate a response, his cheeks glowing red as Scootaloo refused to let go, her hind legs wrapped around his waist. “But I… I can… Solo play… Don’t need…”
“But Button,” Scootaloo whispered, flashing her eyelashes. “Coming to see you is what I look forward to everyday. It is what I dream about. Please don’t take that away from me. I’ll do anything,” she said seductively, licking her lips.
Button gulped loudly, his breathing shallow as Scootaloo clenched him harder. “Oh… okay…”
“What!?” Featherweight scowled as Scootaloo dropped the bashful colt to the floor, smirking at him as she sauntered across the room. But this doesn’t make any sense! Featherweight thought. Who does she think she is seducing Button like that? And I was so sure Button was gay. How else do you explain why he doesn’t have an Oedipus complex!?
Button slowly clambered to his hooves, recoiling as Scootaloo gave him a sultry wink. “Well… I guess that’s that. Scootaloo can watch and… you two can leave.”
“But we’ve come so far,” Snips said, looking glumly to the floor. “Don’t say that our journey hasn’t meant anything.”
“It was fun while it lasted, but now I need to take care of things on my own.” Button shrugged. “We’ll always have the battle on Droopy Drop.”
Featherweight could hardly believe his ears. This couldn’t be happening. Not after all his work, all his effort, he hadn’t gotten his chance to impress Button’s Mum. And worst of all, Scootaloo had found a way to stay with the Mash family for as long as she liked. Featherweight could almost hear the future boasting of her escapades in the bedroom (epic three-ways were inevitable) and it made him sick. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing…
“Evening, my little ponies,” Milano said as she opened the bedroom door, a platter full of treacle tarts balanced on one hoof. “Could I interest you in a little snack?”
Featherweight took one of the delicious treats, looking up to the most beautiful mare in the land. As amazing as the treacle tart tasted, it could not match a being like her. And now he’d been given a death sentence. Button had taken the one thing that meant everything and given Scootaloo the backstage pass. It was now or never…
“Button, wait!” Featherweight cried.
“What is it?” Button snapped.
“All four of us should try just once more. We know where we went wrong, and I’m sure we can beat it this time.”
“Yeah right,” Button scoffed. “I already made my decision, Featherbrain.”
“Then how about I make this more interesting?” Featherweight said with a burst of confidence. “If we lose, I’ll give you ten bits and leave you alone as you wish. But if we win…” Featherweight looked to Button’s Mum as she stared back curiously. “If we win, then I get to stay as your friend we all go to the arcade, and I’ll pay for ten bits worth of games. That is, if your Mum would offer to take us.”
Milano smiled back in an instant. “I have no problem with that. It’ll give me a chance to stretch my legs a little.”
Oh I’ll be stretching your legs in all kinds of ways, Featherweight thought as he uttered a silent ‘thank you’ to the heavens. He turned back towards Button. “So what do you say?”
Button stroked his chin thoughtfully for a few moments. “So either way, I get ten bits worth of games?”
“Exactly!” Featherweight exclaimed. “And we’ve all come so far. It’d be the mark of a true noob to give up now. And you’re not a big casual noob, are you?”
“Well in that case, you’re on!” Button said as he booted up the game once more. “But if we lose, it’s game over for you two!”
“Button!” Milano scolded, a fearsome frown appearing on her face. “Are you threatening to abandon your friends over a video game? Again!? What have I told you?”
Button let out a sigh. “You told me to never put digital entertainment before my friends, no matter how revolutionary its design or how amazing the gameplay is, not even if it has dinosaurs and giant robots that turn into tanks. Friends are for life and games are for hyping for six months, enjoying for six days and then never touching again.”
“That’s an oddly specific promise,” Snips commented confusedly. “But then again, my sister made me promise never to dismantle the shower head. I guess that’s just life.”
Milano gave the group another smile. “Just give me a call as soon as you need taking to the arcade.”
“Don’t you mean, if we need taking?” Button asked.
Milano didn’t answer. Instead, she smiled and winked, then closed the door behind her. She just winked at me, Featherweight said inwardly as the game was booted up once more. She definitely winked at me. No doubt about it. She wants me to win. She definitely, definitely winked. Featherweight sighed contentedly, getting his hooves in position to beat the boss once and for all. Or maybe she blinked, but it looked like she was winking because ponies have eyes on the sides of their head and I only saw one of her eyes. Well, buck it anyway! That’s good enough for me! We’re going to win! We’re going to—
Ten minutes later
“We… we lost?” Featherweight muttered sadly. “But I… but we…”
“Oh don’t cry, little baby,” Scootaloo sneered. “You’re not the first buck-toothed anorexic to fail at life.”
Featherweight fumed with anger. How dare the hopeless orphan cripple insult him!?
“We didn’t lose,” Button chided. “The game’s just doing some cop-out moment where it looks like all hope is lost but then the main character, Alex Blaze, suddenly gains a ridiculous amount of power from a tarot card and saves the universe.”
“Wait, really!?” Featherweight exclaimed.
“Yeah, they’ve done it in a few other games,” Button explained. “Like the one my cousin used to cosplay for. That is, until she stood up on stage at an expo and shouted PONYSONA before blowing her brains out. She still won first prize though. Those were tough times for me, mainly because the next game in the series got cancelled. It took me months to get over that.”
“But how did you know this game would do the same?” Featherweight asked.
“Because I watched all the videos on ponytube. How else do you think I knew those secret tactics?”
Featherweight thought over this for a moment, a grin appearing on his face. “So this means I won my bet? We can go to the arcade?”
“So long as you have the bits,” Button said with a smirk. “You did promise me.”
“Of course,” Featherweight replied, gleefully fondling his bits in Scootaloo’s face. He pocketed the money into his jacket. “I’m a colt of my word.”
“I don’t know what you’re up to,” Scootaloo seethed in a hushed tone. “But it doesn’t make a difference. You are going down.”
“I know,” Featherweight whispered smugly. “I’m going down. Then up. Then down again. Then up again. All night long.”
“I don’t think so, Featherbrain. You keep your bony little hooves off ‘cause she’s mine.”
Button switched off the games console, unaware of the bickering foals a few feet away. He removed the disc and placed it delicately into its game case with a satisfying click. What he held in his hooves represented an experience, nay, a journey. He would never get those hours back, but that didn’t seem to matter. They were irreplaceable. They were special. He had lived and learned and conquered challenges beyond his known capabilities. It was more than just a spiral of ones and zeroes that displayed images and made sounds. It was a physical representation of precious memories, a token by which those memories could once again flourish in the form of nostalgia. It could be handed down like a baton through the ages, so that his children and his children’s children may be able to enjoy its beauty and return to an era from whence they had never existed. And most importantly of all, he could get three bits worth of trade-in value for it at Gameshop. Who could possibly regret that?
“Are you ready, my little ponies?” Button’s Mum called from outside the door.
“Just a second!” Button snapped, snatching the ten bits out of Featherweight’s hoof. “It’s all your fault my Mum is coming with us,” he said with a scowl. “I don’t know about you but I am an independent colt, like The Pone Ranger.” Turning on his hoof Button stormed out with his head held high, only to catch his hoof on the door’s edge with a painful thunk. And then came the screaming.
“Button?” Milano said concernedly. “Are you alright?”
“No! It hurts… It hurt so mu-huh-huh-huch! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“Oh you poor thing. Let Mummy kiss it better for you.” Milano planted a small kiss on the colt’s hoof. “There. Does that feel better?”
“A little,” Button mumbled, tears still streaming down his face. “But… But I don’t think I can walk. I might need a piggyback ride.”
“Wish I’d thought of that,” Scootaloo muttered under her breath.
As Featherweight and company made their way to the Ponyville arcade, the hopeful pegasus practically leaping for joy, the foals failed to notice the eyes of a stallion watching them from across the hall, peering out from behind a door left slightly ajar. He listened intently as Button’s wails became quieter and quieter until the front door was slammed shut, leaving him with no sound but his own thoughts.
Button’s Dad took a deep breath. He had work to do.