//------------------------------//
// Ain't No Rest For The Wicked 
// Story: Benjamin Johnson, Battlony 
// by aricaitlyn 
//------------------------------//

I gasped and leaped out of bed, silver shield and sword in my shaking hands, and helmet on my head. Donna followed, looking terrified. "D-don't hurt me!" I shouted shakily. "Whatever you d-do, you c-can't..."

But it was too late. The ponies formed themselves into a green changeling army. 

"FROOT LOOP, HELP ME!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

She trotted towards me, politely cutting through the crowd of changelings. She looked sickly. "S-sorry, Ben, I can't help you..." She dropped her saddlebag on the bed. "I have to move on. T-to a better place."

Her limp body fell to the ground. I usually don't cry, but here I was, bawling my eyes out over a pony.

I crouched down to the floor, where she lay. "Froot Loop, please, stay with me.." I began to give her mouth-to-mouth, then blushed and realized how awkward this was.

Donna looked down at me. "Ben, she's long gone. She's..." Her voice began to get shaky, and her lip quivered. "D-dead."

She burst into tears and buried her head into my shoulder. I got back up on the bed and gave her a big hug. "Donna, it had to happen eventually. We've still got Lyra, and more importantly, we have ourselves." I swallowed nervously and wiped my tears. "Donna, I-I-I..."

"You love me?" she asked, looking at me. 

I blushed and felt my face turning redder than a tomato. "Yes."

She smiled. "That's all I need to know." 

The brunette waitress swept me up in a kiss. My heart was running marathons. My stomach was turning. This didn't seem right, but again, it was alright for a first kiss.

She released as the changelings crowded us. We swung our swords together, slashing them into green puddles of goo. Fighting ponies was fun enough, but fighting them with the girl you love? That makes all the difference! 

We had slashed every changeling in sight (and hit Lyra ten times by mistake; it's not easy being green), but Greenie, the head honcho, remained. 

"I told you I'd be back," Greenie sneered in her obnoxious voice. "I told you you'd see! But what did you do? You fell in love!"

Donna looked at her. "You need love? 'Cause we'll give you love." I blushed, my mind in the gutter.

"I DON'T NEED LOVE! I NEED TWO HUMANS TO DIE!" Greenie shouted.

"NOT ON MY WATCH!" I retorted.

Donna and I slashed her to bits. It seemed that Greenie's bark was bigger than her bite.

"I guess she was too weak!" Donna exclaimed, wiping sweat from her brow.

"Oh, I wouldn't be giving myself an award quite yet..." I replied nervously. The changeling rebuilt herself behind us, cackling evilly.

Soon, "hack and slash" was my new mindset. 

Hack, slash, repeat. Hack, slash, repeat.

"Is she dead yet?" Donna asked.

Lyra, who had locked herself up in the closet with a slight concussion, replied, "Yes.”

Sticky green changeling goo covered the carpet. That's right, the changelings were dead once and for all.

Donna kissed me again. I stopped her mid-smooch. "Wait, where are my level-ups?!"

As if on command, I heard some 1-up sounds, each one ringing in my ears loudly. On Level 10, the screen showed a phrase. I read it aloud. "'Congratulations, BEN, you have finished the level and are now able to return home. On our part, we present you with a BRONY shirt. You are now 20% cooler.'" 

The frilly pink shirt that Donna lent me was suddenly replaced with a light gray one that read "BRONY" across the front. A picture of Rainbow Dash was underneath the words, her cutie mark colored in red, yellow, and blue. I realized that it was the same shirt Donna had been wearing. So it wasn’t a brownie team after all. That’s kinda disappointing; it sounded delicious.

"That's it?" I griped. "That's the ultimate prize? I nearly lost my life and went into two comas for this - is this from Hot Topic? I've never been! - but..."

The screen flashed again. I read the phrase. "'Your Majesty Princess Celestia would like to award you with something in pony.'"

The screen vanished. The white alicorn appeared before my eyes, shining her light over all the changeling goo. She had wavy, colorful hair, a crown, shoes, and necklace, and a sun on her buns. She was beautiful, and looked like she had some kind of high power over us. I had heard of her before from my friend back home, but I had no idea that she was as amazing as advertised. The only Celestia I had ever seen was my little sister's talking Princess Celestia, which was colored in a painful shade of pink. This regal alicorn looked nothing like the toy. She looked better than some cheap plastic misinterpretation.

The princess looked down at me. Even on all fours, she was much taller than me. "Congratulations, Benjamin Tyler Johnson,” she said, her voice smooth and beautiful. “You have completed your quest and are now in level 10."

It was only natural for me to begin hooting and hollering like a crazy person. Donna joined in. We began running around the room, shouting like crazy people. We high-fived, fist-bumped, and kissed again. This was definitely something worth celebrating, but Celestia thought differently.

"Benjamin," Celestia began. Donna and I stopped in our tracks as Celestia turned to us. "Your ultimate reward is definitely worth smiling about," she finished, using her magic to pull out a pink rhinestone-coated comb. She handed it to me. I felt the magic tingling against my palms. Or was that the cheap glitter paint?

"This is it? That's the ultimate prize?" I repeated.

The princess gave us that same "but wait, there's more" look and turned to the tape recorder. She used her magic to transform it into an iHome with an iPod Touch attached to it. "There's only one song, and it's for you."

I walked towards the iPod dock and pressed the play button. "Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO came out of the speakers. Donna and I began laughing. Celestia looked at us like we were crazy, then rolled her eyes and smiled. "I knew you two would start laughing." Then she disappeared into thin air, leaving the comb and iHome in her midst, and leaving us to continue laughing immaturely until the song was over.

Donna stopped mid-chuckle and looked at me. "You know, Ben..."

I stopped laughing and sat up. "Yeah?"

She picked up the pink comb and ran it through her brown bangs. "When you came here, I was just making small talk. I didn't really like you then."

I blushed. "But I liked you this whole time. I blush a lot. I was surprised you didn't notice."

"But I did notice. And as I helped you level up, I noticed more and more of your true self. You're a great guy." Donna looked down. "It's too bad you have to leave."

I felt the heat getting to me as she looked at me. I was so deep in thought, but she interrupted the process by asking me, "Did you learn the magic of friendship?"

I started to laugh again. "No, but I did learn that brown-haired waitresses are great, sexy weapons are very great, and..." My eyes darted to her locket. I pointed and asked, "What's in there?"

Donna gulped and opened the necklace, revealing two pictures. "These are pictures of my mom and dad," she said, her voice getting thick. "The Equestrians got them. I haven't seen them since."

Suddenly, the princess returned for no reason. I shouted, "Seriously, where do you even come from?!"

"I come from everywhere, child." She turned to Donna. "I forgot that I had a prize for you, too."

Celestia began to apologize like crazy as she returned two adults: one male, one female, both with dark hair like Donna's. "Mom? D-dad?" Donna stood up to hug them. "I missed you so much!"

"We've missed you, too," her mom said. 

Donna's mom gave me a look, as if to say, "Who's this?"

Donna returned the look and gestured to me. "That's Ben. He's really sweet, and he got lost here. I guess he doesn't know where his parents are, and they haven't come back, so..." She looked up at her parents with puppy-dog eyes.

Her dad nodded and smiled. "Yes, he can stay with us. He'll be like a brother to you."

Suddenly, I heard a phone ring. My ears perked up. I had no idea there were phones here. 

Donna picked it up. "Hello? Oh, hi. Yes? No, but he's here. Oh, you're...Ohhh. I get it." She pressed the receiver to her shoulder. "Ben, it's for you."

I took the phone from her. "Hello? Mom? How did you...what did you...where are...You heard there were...creatures here? Yeah, they were like the ponies Katie plays with. Almost exactly. But much bigger. There were about a hundred of them. They took care of me. Then I killed them." 

Mom gasped on the other end. 

"It's fine. Really. It wasn't gory. It was like Minecraft. You kill an animal, they turn red. These ponies just fell to the ground. I'm fine," I repeated over the phone. "There's a really nice girl here, and her family, too. They said I could stay with them. I'll keep in touch, I promise. You'll call when you find the time? Great. Snail-mail? Awesome. Bye, Mom. I really miss you. Tell Katie, Nick, and Dad I say hi." I hung up the phone and ran to hug my new family. 

Lyra finally came out of the closet (get your mind out of the gutter right now). "Hello! Did I miss anything?"

Donna walked up to the mint pony. "Well, Celestia came, apparently we're 'sexy and we know it', I found my parents, and Ben's going to live here. But other than that, you missed nothing. Just regular, everyday stuff. How is it in that closet?"

"Oh, it's great!" Lyra replied, holding up a bag. "There are potato chips in there!"