//------------------------------//
// Puzzlemania  
// Story: No Game No Life 
// by Spirit Shift 
//------------------------------//

	Overcome with excitement and happiness, Pinkie Pie had been the first to hop up and congratulate Octavia, and she did so by giving her an enormous bone-crushing hug. “Oh my gosh, that was so super amazing, Octy!” she cheered. 
        
Octavia struggled to extract herself from the pink mare's grip. With the last of the air in her body she wheezed out, “Yes, thank you-uhf-Pinkie Pie. I--”
        
Pinkie Pie squeezed harder and cut her off. Her excitement growing, Pinkie began exclaiming her points by shaking her captive around, “I mean, you were just about to lose, but you were like, ‘no way I can lose now’, and then you were all like, boom! Punch! Kick! Super move! It was the best thing ever!”
        
Octavia’s lack of air became more and more evident as she felt her consciousness slipping away. ‘I went head to head with the demon fighter and survived… only to die at the hands of an overexcited pink pony,’ she thought, ‘Honestly, I always thought it’d be Lyra finally going insane.’
        
Once again, she felt herself being saved as somepony’s magic finally managed to wrench her away from death’s pink grip. Coming back to her senses, Octavia managed to make out the familiar sounds of Twilight lecturing Pinkie Pie in the background.
        
“Yo, Tavi, you alright?” asked Vinyl, trotting up and patting her gently on the back.
        
Octavia struggled to reinflate her lungs. “Why didn’t you stop her?” she wheezed.
        
Lyra and Sweetie Belle moved to join the two, “Rainbow Dash wanted us to hang back and see how funny this would be,” said Lyra.
        
Octavia screamed, “Why did you listen to her!” Eventually though, her wheezing began to cease, and she was able to stand properly again.
        
Twilight and Rainbow Dash finally trotted up with Pinkie Pie in magical tow. “I am so sorry about these two, Octavia. Girls apologize,” she ordered.
        
Rainbow's eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, why do I have to apologize?” Dash exclaimed.
        
“Because you laughed,” Twilight answered, giving her a dense look.
        
“So did Lyra!” Octavia turned an annoyed gaze towards the accused, only for Lyra to avert her own. Twilight did the same to Rainbow until she relented. “Ugh, Fine. Sorry I sicced Pinkie Pie on you. Happy?”
        
“I’m sorry too!” Pinkie added shamelessly.
        
Octavia rose to her full height and stuck her nose even higher. “I suppose that I’ll be the bigger mare this time and accept your apology.”
        
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to say something, but shut it when Princess Luna stepped into the group. “Excellent display of sportsmanship, ponies,” beamed Luna. “I am proud to formally declare Octavia the winner of this challenge!” With that, everypony broke into loud cheers, congratulating Octavia on her spectacular win. 
        
“Really, Octavia, that was an amazing fight,” said Twilight, trotting up to her side and patting her gently.
        
Octavia gave her a sad smile, “But I lost.”
        
Vinyl grabbed her in a sudden one-legged hug, “Whatever, you were awesome. Doesn't matter if you won or not.” Octavia rolled her eyes but smiled anyway. 
        
“How did you beat Gen?” asked Lyra, “He was like, crazy strong!” Lyra began making wind gestures that were apparently meant to imitate Gen.
        
“Oh, well the secret to beating Gen is in the timing,” she replied. “You need to know when to block and when to counterattack. If you manage to get the timing down, you can successfully combo him without letting him block you.”
        
“I am so downloading this game when I get home,” Lyra squealed.
        
Princess Luna cleared her throat, causing everypony to direct their attention towards her, “Octavia, in addition to the 5000 points that you’ve obtained from this challenge, you also gain the opportunity to guess the name of the pony that created this challenge. Let us be off then.” 
        
Luna lit up her horn, and the resulting flash caused Octavia to shield her eyes. When she finally opened them, she realized that she was now sitting in a large circular white room surrounded by five pillars of various heights, each topped by a dark cloaked figure sitting in a chair. 
        
“Octavia Philharmonica, you have succeeded in beating the Street Fighter challenge,” said one of the figures in Luna’s voice. Octavia tried to pinpoint the direction it came from, only to turn in a complete circle. She soon came to the realization that there must have been a spell in place to prevent that, “State your guess.” 
        
“Oh… Umm,” Octavia put a hoof to her muzzle and sat down, “Alright,” she muttered, voicing her thoughts, “Who do I know that enjoys fighting games...? Well, it can’t be Vinyl because she’s a participant. I could choose the Princess. Although, she did say it was somepony I know.... Well, that narrows it down. I know ponies in Ponyville and Canterlot, plus I grew up in Trottingham, so it could be anypony in Equestria for all I know!” Octavia groaned in frustration, silently shuffling through the list of possible candidates in her mind.
        
Finally she stood up and addressed the figures, “I choose the mare Berry Punch due to the fact that, out of the many ponies I know, she’s one of the only ones that like fighting games. Even though she doesn't play very often, I believe that this would be the first game that she’d choose. Am I correct?”
        
There was a beat of silence before a voice spoke up. This time she was sure it came from the topmost pillar. “That guess is wrong. I do, however, admire your attempt at deduction and your reasoning. You will still receive your points.”
        
“Bugger,” she cursed. “Oh well, better luck next time, then.”
        
“Very nice try, though.” Octavia jumped when Discord suddenly whispered in her ear. Without waiting for a response, Discord snapped his talons, teleporting both of them out of the room.
        
        ~~~
        
Octavia appeared back in the group’s Minecraftian home, startling everypony. Vinyl ran up to Octavia and greeted her. “Tavi, ‘sup!” she said.
        
Twilight also trotted up to her, though she had a worried look instead of Vinyl's cheerful one. “Did you guess correctly?”  she asked.
        
Octavia turned to her and shook her head sadly, “Unfortunately, no.” 
        
Lyra pumped a hoof in victory before turning to her as well. She had a michivous glint in her eye when she talked. “Can you tell us who you guessed..? I mean so that we don’t guess the same pony of course,” asked Lyra.
        
Discord appeared in a flash of light in between the ponies and began wiggling his claw at them. “Well, that’s a big no-no, my little ponies!” he said, “We can’t be giving out undue advantages, now can we?”
        
Rainbow Dash quickly flew up to meet his eye. Jabbing him in the nose, she growled, “What are you doing here?”
        
Discord calmly nudged the pegasus away before making his way around the room. “Well, you all still look so energetic even after you’ve just finished a challenge. So I got to thinking, we wouldn't want that energy going to waste, would we?”
        
“Your point?” Twilight asked, glaring at him suspiciously.
        
“You see,” he continued, “I’ve been given the special authority of providing extra entertainment for our contestants. In other words, I get to hand out bonus challenges as I see fit.”
        
“Seriously?” asked Lyra. At first she had been disinterested, and her attention lost. But at the mention of a bonus challenge her attention span gained the life of a phoenix.
        
“Indeed, Ms. Heartstrings. Special bonus rounds for a few extra points. Interested?”
        
“Hell, yeah!” Vinyl cheered. She quickly turned and high hoofed Lyra in excitement. Even though she and Lyra were excited, everypony else seemed to be silently debating it, almost as if they were suspicious of his motives. Eventually, the rest of them nodded in agreement.
        
“Wonderful!” Discord cheered. He clapped for a few seconds before putting a paw to his beard. “Now… I wonder what I’ll have you do.”
        
“You mean you don’t actually have an idea?” asked Sweetie Belle.
        
“Well, honestly, I thought you all would have run me out by now,” he admitted, “Hmm. Ah, I know.” Discord snapped his talons, teleporting everypony into a wide-open brown room filled to the brim with objects. Each section of the room held a large framed portrait of Discord. “How many of you like puzzles… Twilight, put your hoof down.”
        
After Twilight put her hoof down, Sweetie Belle and Octavia raised theirs. Everypony else simply began looking around at the various objects in the room.
        
Sweetie nearly began hopping in place alongside Pinkie Pie. “I do puzzles with my mom sometimes,” she announced.
        
“I don’t get to do them often,” said Octavia, raising her's slightly, “but I do enjoy a slight brain teaser every once in a while.”
        
“Wonderful,” clapped Discord. He began gesturing to every object in the room. “Because, you see, everything in this room is a type of puzzle. In order to win my challenge, you need to be able to find, and solve, the one puzzle that wins the game.”
        
Twilight raised her hoof as well, “How do we know which one it is?”
        
Discord smirked and turned to walk towards a corner. “When you solve it, you’ll know.”
        
Rainbow Dash did a small flyby, taking a glance at the various objects scattered around. Some were traditional puzzles such as number games or picture puzzles, some were off-the-wall, bizarre types like 5-sided circles and mismatched, color-coordinated pictures, and others hung on the walls as riddles and brainteasers. Rainbow stopped for a second to look at what seemed like a large portrait of Discord’s face. “Nope,” she announced, “I give up. I’m not enough of an egghead to solve even half of this stuff.”
        
Discord slithered back on over and gave her a sad look, “Oh, what’s wrong Rainbow Dash? You don’t want the extra thousand points?” 
        
Rainbow shrugged him off, “No way." she crossed her legs in front of her defiantly. "I’ll just win the next challenge tomorrow. I’ll save my brain power for then,” she bragged.
        
Discord shrugged and snapped his paw, sending her back to the house. “Anypony else?” he asked. Hearing nothing, Discord turned back to the group. “Now, before we begin, I do need to mention that if I get bored, everypony loses. So I’ll set the time limit for, oh… 10 minutes.”
        
“Wait!” Twilight yelled! “That’s not fair! Puzzles need meticulous amounts of time and effort to solve correctly.”
        
Discord conjured a clock in his paw and began to set the time. “Well, I’d solve the simple ones first, then. You have plenty to choose from.”
        
“But--” Twilight’s protest died in her throat when she was unceremoniously shoved out of the way by Vinyl and Lyra on their way to the closest puzzle. Assuming the the race had begun, Sweetie Belle, Pinkie Pie and Octavia also trotted off to separate sections of the room.
        
Eventually, Twilight got up and began wandering around, desperately trying to see what she could solve first. The first thing she came across was an ordinary picture puzzle. Figuring that it would be a good place to start, she sat down and began solving it. Just by looking at the individual pieces, she could tell that it was a picture of the sun and moon. She started at a fast pace, carefully moving each piece to where it needed to be while also moving others to positions that they would need to be in order to move others to their correct positions. 
        
After a few seconds, Twilight gazed down with a curious expression at a puzzle that should have been completed by now, nearly glaring at a piece that had gotten mixed up with a piece near the bottom. Both were in each others rightful space even though Twilight could have sworn she moved them correctly. Shrugging, she disassembled the puzzle and began redistributing the pieces into their rightful spots, slowly this time.
        
A few minutes and several attempts later, Twilight, on the verge of rage quitting, nearly threw the puzzle at Discord. “Discord!” she growled. “You cheated! This puzzle rearranges its pieces whenever you’re not looking directly at them!”
        
Discord picked up the puzzle and gave it an amused glance. “Well, it wouldn't be much of a challenge if I didn't… well… challenge you,” said Discord, shrugging. “It’s your job to tell the real ones from the fake ones in order to not waste time.”
        
Twilight growled and rubbed her temple in frustration, “But that’s not how it works. Puzzles are meant to be solved, you can’t just--”
        
Discord tilted his head side to side, imitating a clock. “Tick-tock, Twilight. You do have a time limit you know.”
        
Twilight threw up her forelegs in the classic rage quit gesture. “No, you know what? I can’t do this. Puzzles! Are meant! To be solved! I give up, please take me home.” Before Discord could snap his claws, Twilight grabbed the puzzle back in her magic. “I’m taking this with me so I can dispel whatever enchantment you have on it. It’ll give me something to do in between challenges.”
        
Discord shrugged and snapped his claws, teleporting her back to the room. After a few seconds, he fell out laughing. “She’ll never figure it out!” he cackled.
        
Luckily for them, most of the other ponies in the room heard the outburst and adapted to the new situation. Vinyl, who had been trying to complete three plain 30 piece picture puzzles, smirked. “So that’s what’s up,” she muttered. Tossing away the pictures, Vinyl jumped back into the mountain of objects, determined to find the simplest puzzles she could and marathon them.
        
Lyra, however, had been doing that from the start. Having always been weirdly good with Rubik’s cubes, she tackled those first, solving each one she could find. After the fifth one, she gave up and tried other kinds. Eventually, she trotted over to the puzzles hanging on the wall. There were various riddles hanging there to solve, however, one particular riddle caught her eye. Curiously, she read it over a few times before giving up.
        
“Hey, Octi,” she called. “Come here for a second.”

Octavia groaned before yelling back in frustration, "Don't call me Octi!" Almost reluctantly, Octavia made her way across the room to meet Lyra.

“Can you figure this out?” Lyra asked, gesturing to the riddle.
        
Octavia peered over and began to read it aloud: “Three ponies check into a hotel. They pay 30 bits to the manager and go to their room. The manager suddenly remembers that the room rate is 25 bits and gives five bits to the bellcolt to return to the guests. On the way to the room, the bellcolt reasons that 5 bits would be difficult to share amongst three ponies so he pockets two and gives one to each guest. Now each guest paid 10 bits and got back one.
        
"So they paid 9 bits each, totalling 27. The bellcolt has two, totaling 29 bits. Where is the missing bit?”
        
“See?” said Lyra, throwing her hooves up in frustration. “I think the bellcolt stole it, but apparently that’s not the right answer. Can you figure it out? Or is it another trick puzzle?”
        
“No… I don’t think so. Although something is definitely wrong here.” Octavia gave the riddle another curious read before mouthing off a few numbers. Finally, her eyes lit up in realization. “I understand now! The math is wrong here. Think of it as if you were making change. If they paid 30 bits originally and each pony received a bit back, they only really paid 27. 25 bits for the room and two for the bellcolt!”
        
With Octavia’s spoken answer the riddle lit up and flashed with a bright light. After the light died down, Lyra and Octavia deadpanned at the smiling picture of Discord that replaced the riddle. Written on the frame was: “Nice Try”
        
Lyra sighed and turned back towards Octavia, “How much time do we have left?”
        
Octavia turned back towards Discord and examined the clock sitting next to him. She quickly turned back and panicked. “We only have two minutes left!”
        
Octavia hurried back towards the puzzles she had been doing while Lyra continued to solve the riddles on the wall. “What day would tomorrow be if yesterday was five days before the day after Sunday's tomorrow?”
        
Lyra’s face scrunched up for a few seconds before gasping loudly. “I know this one! Saturday!” The page lit up and turned into a picture of Discord eating ice cream with the words ‘Sweet Loss’ on it. Lyra simply growled and moved to the next one.
        
Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie threw down a die in another attempt to solve the riddle she had chosen. She rolled a four before glancing over to see if she had gotten the correct answer. No dice, it seemed. Pinkie picked up the die and glared at it. “How do you get a 7 with a six sided die?” she wondered before rolling it again. “I don’t get it.” 
        
Over in Vinyl’s corner sat several finished puzzles, riddles, and brain teasers. If she found a puzzle that couldn't be solved in about 30 seconds she tossed it to the side, convinced that the winning puzzle had to be something short. She was about halfway through her latest puzzle when a stray thought stopped her dead cold. Slowly, a large smile worked it’s way onto her mouth and she confidently trotted up to Discord.
        
“Yo,” she said, waving at him to get his attention, “You said everything in this room is a puzzle, trick, or riddle, right?”
        
Discord lowered his own shades and smirked, “That I did, Pon-3.”
        
Vinyl slammed a hoof onto the ground before dramatically thrusting it forward and pointing it directly at Discord. “Then I say that the game itself is a puzzle!” she declared.
        
Everypony turned their attention towards Vinyl and Discord, stunned at her accusation. After processing it they realized that her idea actually made sense. 
        
“Every object in this room is a sort of puzzle,” she continued, holding onto to her stance, “but that’s the trick. They’re meant to distract us from finding the real puzzle and winning the game!”
        
Discord looked at her with a surprised gaze before removing his shades completely. Slowly, he brought his claw and paw together in a slow clap. Octavia ran up and hugged the unicorn. "Vinyl, that was brilliant!” she cheered.
        
Vinyl stuck her nose in the air and smirked, “Yeah, I’m awesome. I--”
        
“OBJECTION!” screamed Discord, thrusting a paw out in the same manner Vinyl did. “If I did do such a thing… why did Sweetie Belle just win the challenge?”
        
Everypony's heads snapped towards Sweetie Belle who flinched from the sudden attention. Her hoof was touching one of the pictures of Discord. Instantly, she was showered in bright flashes and confetti rain that nearly blinded her, and loud strawberry flavored cheers that smelled like plastic, nearly blowing her ears out. By the end of it she stood, disoriented, wobbling back and forth. Everypony stood slack-jawed at the large sign pointing down at her, saying, “Winner!”
        
Octavia and Vinyl turned back towards Discord with stupefied faces. “B-But I thought I won!” Vinyl muttered.
        
“Hm,” he said, checking the remaining time, “No, but you were close. These puzzles and riddles are in fact here to distract you, but not from me.” He teleported over to Sweetie Belle. “I’m sure dear Sweetie Belle would love to explain how she won."
        
Sweetie Belle shrugged and fidgeted nervously. “I just went over to the picture that Rainbow Dash was looking at. Something felt wrong about it, other than the fact that it was his face, I mean. As I was working my way around the room and trying to solve other puzzles, I looked at the other pictures and realized what was wrong. This picture wasn't like the others.”
        
Lyra trotted over and analyzed the picture that Sweetie Belle stood by. Turning around, she examined all of the other ones. The one Sweetie Belle stood at depicted Discord laying on a bed of roses and looking directly at the camera. The one to the left of them depicted Discord standing atop a mountain holding what looked to be a glass of water. To the right sat Discord in bed surrounded by mares. And the back wall was just a picture of his smiling face as he and a blue hedgehog ran down a mountain. “I don’t get it,” said Lyra. “They’re all different.”
        
“No, look,” Sweetie assured, pointing directly at Discord’s face. Lyra took a good long look but shrugged when she couldn't figure it out. Sweetie Belle sighed and motioned for Discord to lean his head down next to the picture. He did so gladly, even going so far as to make the same smiling face. Sweetie began motioning between his face and the frame. Octavia picked it up first; she looked from Discord’s face, to the portrait, then to the surrounding pictures. 
        
“His tooth is on the wrong side!” she announced. The second she did, everypony’s eyes went wide in realization. “In every picture it’s on the right side. That’s the only one where it’s on the left.”
        
Discord flew into the air and cheered as fireworks went off behind him. “Exactly! Congratulations, dear Sweetie Belle. You’ve uncovered the one puzzle that grants you the win,” he said, strutting back towards Vinyl, “With only a few seconds to spare no less. Just think, little miss DJ here almost distracted you long enough to lose. What a shame that would have been,” he snickered. “Either way, you win the 1000 points for recognizing the subtle nuances of my unique face.”
        
“Umm, yay?” said Sweetie a bit unsure.
        
“Little filly,” said Discord, reeling back in shock. “You simply must put more oomph into your victory chant.”
        
        
        ~~~
        
        
“...And then he spent five minutes lecturing us on proper cheering technique,” Sweetie Belle finished. Currently, the entire group sat upright on their individual beds, listening to her as she summed up everything that happened.
        
Rainbow Dash nearly punched the ground in frustration. “I can’t believe I was looking right at it!”
        
“Well, it’s fine,” muttered Twilight, still working to disenchant the puzzle she had taken. “We have tomorrow.”
        
“Speaking of tomorrow,” began Pinkie, “I can’t wait to see what fun game Princess Luna has in store for us! Do you think it’ll be some kind of adventure game?”
        
“I don’t know, Pinks,” said Vinyl. “But one thing’s for sure. We can’t get there until little miss OCD comes to bed.”
        
“No! Just five more minutes and I’ll have this thing figured out!” Twilight yelled as she frantically fretted over her frustratingly fixated foe. No matter what she did over the course of the day, the stupid puzzle remained unsolved. It was driving her crazy. While everypony else had gotten ready to go to bed, Twilight sat in the corner with a nearly crazed look.
        
“Twilight, you said that at the beginning of the story an hour ago,” said Rainbow Dash laying down impatiently on her bed. “Lyra, magic her into bed already.”
        
“Nuh-uh! I’m not getting arrested for magic handling a Princess again! Bon Bon will have my head!” she replied, reeling back and shuddering at the memory.
        
“Fine, I’ll do it then.” Moving fast, Rainbow caught Twilight and began to drag her over to her bed, with Twilight kicking and screaming the entire way. 
        
“No! No! I can do this!” she screamed frantically.“I can do it! Just five more minutes! Please! Puzzles are meant… to… be…” Twilight trailed off as Rainbow finally got her into bed and putting her to sleep. Hurrying, she grabbed the puzzle from where it sat in Twilight’s corner and flew out the door, intent on tossing it far into the sea. Everypony would eventually agree that it was the most rational course of action, and Twilight would wake up the next day believing the entire thing to be a nightmare from the pits of Tartarus.