//------------------------------//
// Day 45, Hour Three 
// Story: Twitch Plays Equestria Online 
// by NuclearPony 
//------------------------------//

Twitch Plays Equestria Online



Part 5



An emerging town is a beautiful thing. Even if not every building in it was entirely aesthetically pleasing ("Why would you build your house out of cheese?..." "It was the only material I had on me.") the important thing was really the sense of community, the feeling that you could walk out of your door and greet your neighbor instead of avoiding eye contact with everyone you interacted with in public.

Of course I was personally pretty well known in this town so that helped. It was kind of embarrassing to have so many ponies know me so well while I only knew a relatively few of them by name and sight. I was working to change this but its slow going learning the name of every resident in a town with a population of over four thousand.

Ding. The sound of a bell interrupted my train of thought, I stopped my wool gathering and stepped away from the window looking out on the town to see what the chat wanted me to do now. 

TrackFire5: I command you to start an aviation industry in less than five minutes.

I grinned as I read this. I wouldn't have described myself as a mayor, with me still running this twitch plays experiment I was really more like something inflicted upon the community we had built here than its leader, in fact I was rather lucky that the town folk put up with my shenanigans as well as they did.  

Walking out the door I immediately headed for Wing Gremlins place at a trot. I hoped she wasn't going to be too irritated with me for dumping my ideas on her and her workshop considering she was still building that giant robot a Twitch viewer had wanted last week. Okay so she wasn't JUST building it because it had been something I'd been commanded to create, mares dig giant robots.

"You've got that look in your eyes. What is it now?" Gremlin demanded without even looking up from her sautering as I walked into her home.

"New command. I'm to start an aviation industry right away." I explained apologetically. 

The pegasus mechanic stopped so she could lean back in her chair and stroke her chin as she contemplated this, after a few seconds she noticed what she was doing and stopped. "Gah, still used to having a beard instead of this... whatever this pony skin is." She muttered. "I'm guessing you have some ideas you want to ditch on me?"

I walked over and hugged her. "Only because I know you're the pony for the job!" I turned to her drafting table and quickly grabbed a pen and new sheet of paper, having little time to waste after having taken two minutes just to walk over here. "I was thinking we could get started right away with balloons. A few of those would make really great watchtowers if we equipped them with some decent telescopes."

Gremlin leaned against the table as she watched me sketch. "We've certainly got enough to watch out for to justify the cost. Heck we were even contemplating building watch towers."

I nodded, switching to a larger zeppelin like design on the other side of the page. "And we kind of choose poorly when we decided that this was the place we were gonna build our town. It certainly looks pretty but the river is more of a creek really. Which means we cant ship heavier building materials like marble by boat and were eventually going to need some kind of aquaducts if the population keeps growing. To move all that material we could try and use a cargo mover blimp."

"We didn't really choose at all, that was some random twitch viewer who told you to pick this spot." The pegasus grumbled.

"Some random twitch viewer who eventually moved his avatar to this shard. If hes putting his shoulder to the wheel with the rest of us hes one of us." I replied, bopping the grouchy pegasus on the nose. She glowered in return and set my blueprints to the side. 

"I cant believe I gave up a job at the Smithsonian to build blimps. And giant robots. And mechanical calculators." She was grinning now despite herself. "The fire and or magic extinguisher filled with rainbow water was pretty fun too. Hmm, I guess I can believe I gave up a job curating dusty old records for this."

I smiled and realized my five minutes was just about up, glad I had fulfilled my command by getting the idea into the head of the pony who could make it happen I started to trot out the door in anticipation of where my next command would take me. "Thanks Gremlin, you're the best!"

The pegasus rolled her eyes and got back to work sautering. "Yes, I know darling. I know."

I enjoyed just strolling down the street for a few seconds, admiring the store fronts and homes that had been cobbled together over this last month. There wasn't really any single theme going on here and I was perfectly okay with that, seeing a near replica of Himeji Castle on the other side of the street from a manor which had been grown from a tree rather than built was just one of those unexpected pleasures in life that you cant really plan.

Ding. And it was time to do something else. I glanced at my command and then looked around to see how close I was to the nearest bakery. I had altered what little zoning there was in this town so that there was always a nearby bakery in case of baking emergencies. Not that this qualified as an emergency. I had gotten so many commands to bake cupcakes that my cupcakes had become famous as the five minute cupcakes. 

I waved at the owner as I walked in and headed straight for her kitchen. She stopped talking to her costumer for a second to smile and wave back. "Good morning miss Runner! Another order for some cupcakes?" She asked cheerfully, I nodded vigorously and got to work. 

"I'm feeling... Banana and chocolate chip?" I mused aloud, able to just relax and enjoy the simple repetitiveness of a task I had down pat yet still loved doing.

It was ten minutes later while I was fulfilling a command to help sell treats and confections by dressing in a sexy waitress costume (the fact that the store owner had one on hand gave me a sneaking suspicion she might have been on the twitch channel while I was in the kitchen...)  that the ground started shaking and the sky split open with a sound not unlike reality crying in despair as it was torn asunder.

Me and the owner of the bakery started at each other for a few tense seconds. "I still have two minutes left on this command." I said regretfully. 

She shook her head vigorously and pushed me out the door. "No you dont! I'm closing early for the day so go find out what that was!" 

I galloped as fast as I could for the edge of town without bothering to take the costume off, as was usually the case I just didn't have time to worry about how silly I looked. On the horizon I could see jagged purple lines spreading across the sky. I was heartened as I ran and saw many pony folk coming out of their homes and running behind me, almost every pony who was currently playing was mobilizing to the towns defense.

When I got to the temple built by my friend Laughing Monk I burst through the door and headed straight for the stairs. On the roof I found the rest of the towns founding members, somehow they almost managed to play as many hours a day as I did.

"Is that what I think it is?" Asked Dyna Soar, awestruck as he stared at the hole in reality that was tearing itself open even further with each passing second. Extending out of the hole were what could be generously called giant neon purple earth worms. 

I snorted. "Yep. Data Wyrms."

Gremlin shook her head. "I really wish the CIA would stop programming the damn things. Or at the very least that Celestia would stop letting them through into our shard." 

I winked at her and stepped over to the edge of the roof. "Oh come on. Whats life without a little alien invasion to thwart every once in a while?" I asked before looking down to address the crowd gathered below. "So who wants to see me suplex an eldritch abomination from beyond Equestria?!" I listened for a second to that satisfying roar of approval the crowd gave back to me. "Well then I'm going to need some ponies to watch my back, If you want to be one of those ponies just follow me!" I shouted before spreading my wings and launching into the air.



No badges today, it was a pretty average day.