Octavia stared down at the two foals in front of her, blissfully watching cartoons as if it were a regular Saturday morning. Dancing on the show in front of them was a small turtle shelled cartoon pony with a heavy black outline. He was surrounded by other more colorful ponies with thin black outlines. All of them wore odd, superhero-like costumes.
However, what confused her the most, and caused her to direct her attention originally, was the theme song that was being sung by some old foreign man.
"Star of Lily Mu"
"Everything is all new"
"Showtime is today"
"Here in Neighpan"
"Hey! (Hey!) Look! (Look!)"
"Out in the streets!"
"Don’t you know that colt is Kappa Pony!"
Octavia continued to look at the TV with a blank stare. She had never been one for cartoons. Being a stout realist, she prefered documentaries that showcased the true reality of events. It was her personal belief that most cartoons were unnecessarily violent and only very few taught anything educational. But to each her own.
“What… am I looking at here?” she finally asked.
Lyra and Rainbow Dash turned around in tandem. One pony had on a smile that only grew wider from looking at Octavia, and the other had on a slight frown.
“It’s a cartoon, duh,” Rainbow answered snidely.
“Well, I know that,” Octavia huffed, rolling her eyes. She gave the show another scrutinizing look. “I meant was what is it about? It looks… odd, to say the least.”
Lyra swiveled around on her butt to face her friend completely. “It’s this show about an Equestrian pony winding up in Neighpan and becoming the star of this fictional show called Kappa Pony. You know what a kappa is right?”
Rainbow Dash scoffed and mumbled, “Probably not.”
Octavia huffed, ”Of course I do.” She turned to Twilight. “Twilight, what’s a kappa?”
Twilight, sitting comfortably over on her bed, raised her head from the book she was reading. Eager to showcase her knowledge of something unexpected, she answered with a smile. “A kappa, or ‘river child’ as it is also called, is a widely recognized yokai or ‘demon’ found in Neighpanese mythology. Even though it is considered mythological, a.k.a. fictional, kappas are in fact real. Though they are extremely rare, with only a hoof-full of sightings ever officially recorded.”
Octavia nodded in thanks and turned back to Rainbow Dash, who had accidentally left her jaw on the ground. She quickly picked it up and sent a harsh glare toward the grey mare. “That’s… that’s cheating! You didn’t actually know.”
Octavia smirked. “That’s beside the point. Lyra please continue.”
Lyra shrugged. In reality, she was going to ask Octavia what it was anyway. For all she knew it was some kind of duck-turtle thing. “Anyway, it’s pretty much about this Equestrian learning to make his way through Neighpan while keeping his role as the show’s star.”
Octavia tilted her head in confusion. Looking past Lyra she saw some of the thin line characters deform into smaller versions of themselves. The thick outlined pony tried to do the same thing, only to look confused and wonder how. “So it’s a show about Neighpanese stereotypes?”
“He’s also an idiot,”added Lyra.
Octavia deadpanned, “So it’s a show about Neighpanese and Equestrian stereotypes. Wonderful.”
“Hey, it’s funny!” defended Rainbow.
“Well, I’m not saying it’s not,” Octavia held up a hoof in defense. “I’m just saying… well, I haven’t actually said anything yet.”
“Yes, you did. You called it a show about stereos!” Rainbow accused, pointing a hoof at her.
“Stereotypes, Rainbow Dash. And that’s because it is. From the 2 minutes in which I have subjected myself to this, I have picked out several stereotypes common in anime.”
“Yeah?” Rainbow crossed her arms. “Like what?”
Lyra gave her a surprised look. “You watch anime?”
Octavia smiled and moved past them to get closer to the T.V. She pointed to the main character. “Well, for example the apparent running gag that the Equestrian characters cannot super deform like the others.” She pointed toward the tall mare with blue a mane. “Look at the way this mare looks at the main character, obviously her love interest. She has hearts in her eyes for pony’s sake.” Next, she pointed at the second mare with an orange mane. “Now look at how the main character looks at this other pony, clearly oblivious to the first mare’s affections. This has anime cliche written all over it.”
Lyra clapped her hooves while Rainbow scowled at her. “Well, what does that have to do with anything?”
Octavia, having made her point, turned and moved back to her previous spot. “Oh, absolutely nothing. You asked what I meant. This cartoon is clearly based around anime cliches. But if you enjoy it, I won’t argue.”
Rainbow turned back to her show and grumbled, “Still a good show.”
“Wow,” gasped Lyra. “How do you know so much about anime?”
Octavia chuckled darkly, her laughter somehow sounding dry and tired. “When you’re roommates with somepony like Vinyl Scratch, you’ll find that their interests will quickly become your interests. “ She sighed and rubbed a hoof over her forehead. “I bet I could even tell you how to calibrate the sound for a DJ booth.”
“Aww, I wish I had Vinyl for a roommate…” Lyra’s eyes lit up in excitement as she jumped to her hooves. “Hey! Hey, Tavi! Wanna trade roommates? I’ll take Vinyl and you can have Bon Bon!”
Octavia opened her mouth, but at that moment the white mare in question slammed open the door to greet the others. “‘Sup, mah ponies! What’s crackalackin’?”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “By all means, take her. But you’ll have to convince her on your own.”
Lyra hopped excitedly in place for a second before dashing over to the unicorn. Said unicorn took something out of her extradimensional Minecraft storage space and sat it in the middle of the room. Interested, Twilight hopped off of her bed and walked over to her.
Lyra hopped around Vinyl and quickly asked her question. “Hey, Vinyl, wanna come be my roommate?”
Vinyl sat next to her odd box before turning and giving Lyra a confused look. “What? Me? Nah, I think I’m good.”
Lyra slumped in disapointment while Twilight trotted up next to her and asked her own question. “Vinyl, what’s that?”
Turning to answer the more interesting question, Vinyl smiled at Twilight and gestured grandly at the checker-patterned box in front of her. “This is a music box! Pinkie helped me make it. By the way, to answer your next question: no, I don’t know where they are. Pinkie’s still out there with Sweetie Belle doing some secret project that they won’t let me in on.”
Twilight carefully examined the box with great curiosity. “Interesting. Well, that answers my second question. My third one is: What is it?”
Vinyl’s smile grew even wider. “And that, filly, is what I’m about to show you. If you slam your hoof on it, it makes a random instrument noise. You can recreate any song if you have enough of them. See, watch!” She slammed her hoof on the box once, creating a single low gonging sound.
Immediately, a large orange hole opened under the group, causing them all to fall through. All of them landed in a heap inside a familiar purple room. Princess Luna stood over them in person, glancing up at the small portal that she had just opened on the ceiling. Covering her hoof was a white machine with the word WHOOP written across it. Smiling, she glanced toward the hidden camera and winked to the audience. “Now that is thinking with portals.” A rim shot and generic canned laughter echoed through the room, causing Luna to frown. “Discord!” All sound effects immediately stopped.
Annoyed that her moment was ruined, Luna got back on track. She gestured with the device-covered hoof in a wide arc. “Welcome, ponies... back to the Velvet Room!”
“Still not velvet…” Octavia groaned. She was currently situated underneath Rainbow’s tail, something the cyan mare was having a slight chuckle at.
Princess Luna rolled her eyes. “Working on it!” she hissed. Regaining her smile, she looked over her heap of contestants. “And how are we doing this fine morning?”
On the bottom of the pile, Lyra opened her eyes and glanced up at the device in the princess’ hoof. Instantly, she burst out of the pile and rushed over to get a closer look at the device. “Is that a portal gun? Please, please, please, PLEASE tell me that we’re doing what I think we’re doing?”
Luna watched as the other ponies finally got off of one another before looking down at the mint unicorn in front of her. Smirking trollishly, she lit up her horn and magicked the device away. “I am sorry, Lyra Heartstrings. This was just a test run for a later challenge.” She frowned and counted the ponies before her. “Are we missing some ponies?”
Twilight also glanced around. “Pinkie Pie and Sweetie Belle were out of the house when you… ‘portaled’ us.”
Luna sighed dejectedly, for she had already said the quote and dismissed the device. If she pulled it out again, it would be in bad taste. Instead, she simply flared up her horn and teleported the ponies to her. Pinkie Pie and Sweetie Belle popped into existence above Rainbow Dash, once more, putting them in a heap. Though this time, Rainbow Dash was on the bottom.
“Wait? What?” Sweetie Belle shouted, looking around in confusion.
She was soon lifted up by Pinkie, whose head she had been sitting on. “It’s alright, Sweetie Belle. It’s game time!” she cheered.
Sweetie Belle oh’d in response. Twilight quickly moved over to them with an inquisitive look on her face. “Where were you two at?” she asked.
Pinkie turned to her with a smile. “Oh, we were just--” Sweetie quickly reached down and covered the chatty mare’s mouth.
“Nothing! It’s a secret! A Pinkie Promise!” she blurted.
“Oh, yeah,” Pinkie giggled. “Sorry, Twi.”
“Can you two please get off of me?!” Rainbow yelled. Pinkie and Sweetie quickly hopped off of the fuming pegasus. Rainbow Dash wasted no time in flying up into the air to dust herself off.
Deciding that enough time had passed, the princess cleared her throat to gather everypony’s attention. “Ahem! Welcome, ponies! I have an announcement! Today, we have a special challenge suggested to one of our gamemasters from an outside source. The rules have not changed however. You still have to guess the correct gamemaster who set up the challenge. I simply wanted to allocate credit where it is due.”
Octavia stepped forward and asked, “Are we allowed to know who it was? Maybe it could provide a hint for us.”
Luna chuckled. “Ever the opportunist, Octavia. No. Unfortunately, this pony has opted to use an alias. If I recall it was “Twilight Shimmer.”
Twilight’s eyes shrunk in surprise. “That’s an… interesting name.”
Meanwhile, Pinkie, Lyra, and Vinyl fell onto each other in identical fits of laughter. “Oh! I get it!” Pinkie got out. “I bet she’s like a mix of you and Sunset Shimmer! Like your daughter or something!”
Twilight reeled back in shock. “Pinkie! Don’t even joke about that!”
Vinyl and Lyra paused in their laughter and looked at one another. Quickly hopping to their hooves, the two mares ran in opposite directions of one another.
Vinyl called over to Twilight. “Or maybe something like this!” Vinyl and Lyra stood up on their hind legs while holding both of their forelegs in opposite directions. Moving towards each other, the two moved their hooves in arcs so that, by the time the two were inches from one another, their hooves were nearly touching. Both of them chanted at the same time.
“FUUUU.... SION!” At the last syllable, both mares quickly redirected their hooves back to their original positions, faced away from each other.
At the simultaneous shout of “HA!” both mares instantly brought their hooves and horns together, forming a complete arc between them. The second their hooves and horns touched, they released a blinding light that caused everyone to cover their eyes.
When everypony finally regained their vision, they found Pinkie Pie standing where the two previously were. She wore a colored cardboard horn and wings, and her mane was styled like Sunset’s but in Twilight’s mane colors. She stood tall and regal for all of three seconds before falling out in more laughter. Twilight and the others stared at the display in amazement before turning at the sound of further laughter from behind them.
Lyra and Vinyl traded hoof bumps and cheered over their successful improv show. “That was awesome!” Lyra cheered. “Are you suuuuure you don’t wanna come live with me?” she pleaded further.
Vinyl laughed a bit more before putting a hoof to her chin in thought. “That was awesome. I’ll think about it.” Over by the others, Octavia’s eyes shrank in surprise.
Princess Luna finished chuckling and began applauding lightly. “Very well-performed, ponies. Moving on, I have further announcements. I will no longer be the narrator for these challenges.” She paused for a second to take in the ponies confused and surprised faces. “This is a suggestion by Discord, surprisingly. It is an attempt to make the game easier. From this challenge on, the game master who created the challenge will explain its rules.”
Twilight hummed in understanding, “Oh, I get it. This is so we can analyze their speech patterns for hints. That does make things easier.”
“Exactly, Twilight Sparkle. I was told that simply allowing you to take a, and I quote, “shot in the dark” every time one of you won, would cause the game to go on indefinitely.”
“Well, we can’t all be pro MLG’s with capped-out guessing skills,” Lyra snarked.
Luna nodded sadly, genuinely disappointed, “Indeed. ‘Tis as shame.” Brightening up, she flared up her horn and prepared to teleport the group. “Anyway, I will see you all after the game! Good luck to all of you!”
~~~
“You know,” began Octavia, “I’m getting tired of this.” Octavia once again found herself under a pile of ponies after being teleported. Luckily, she quickly found herself lifted up in familiar lavender-colored magic. Twilight sat everypony upright, receiving a thankful smile from the other ponies before she took a look around.
“So, where are we this time?” asked Twilight. Everypony began to analyze their new surroundings. They stood atop a fairly straight and wide dirt path. To one side stood a tall and dense forest, and to the other side sat fairly steep cliff. Staring down the path, the ponies could see various 8-bit soldiers and turret guns moving this way and that.
Lyra squinted at the scene. “This looks familiar…”
Octavia simply continued to look around in confusion. “Well, not to me. I can’t recall any stage from any game that I’ve played looking like this.”
“Same here, I don’t recognize any of this,” mumbled Twilight. “But from the pixelated graphics, it seems like an old game.”
“Very good, Twilight. You’re exactly right!”
Everypony glanced up at the sky in response to the familiar voice. “Princess Luna?” asked Pinkie. “I thought you weren't going to be the one to play narrator this time.”
The voice chuckled warmly. “Oh, no. I’m not the princess. I’m the one who created this challenge. Though I suppose that, to you, I must sound like the princess so you don’t recognize my voice.” It was true, while the voice did sound like the princess, this voice was warm, relaxed, and kind. It wasn't formal and commanding like the princess of the night’s usual tone.
“Mind giving us any hints, then?” Octavia asked, smiling slightly.
You could practically hear the smile grow on the voice’s face. “What kind of hint are you looking for?”
Octavia tapped her muzzle in thought. “Oh I don’t know. Are you a mare or a stallion?”
“Well, I don’t see how that helps you in any way, Octavia.”
“Any information helps,” Octavia said proudly. Twilight nodded in agreement.
“Enough with the introductions already!” ordered Rainbow Dash. “Where in Equestria are we?”
The voice sighed. “It really saddens me how you young ponies don’t know the classics. Maybe this’ll help.” There was a small clicking sound and fast paced 8-bit battle music began playing from nowhere.
Everyone listened for a few seconds before hopping back at the Pinkie Pie level gasp that was let out by somepony other than Pinkie Pie. Lyra nearly deafened everypony with the screech that she let out afterwards. “I remember now!” she squealed.
Twilight rubbed her ear and gave Lyra an annoyed look. “Do you want to tell us?”
“I remember playing this game as a filly with my mom!” Lyra giggled as she pranced in place. “This is Contra! We’re in the first stage!”
There was a clapping noise and the voice cheered. “There we go! I knew somepony would remember this game.”
Vinyl turned to Lyra and scratched her head in confusion. “I didn’t know your mom played video games.”
“Yeah, my mom was the one who got me into video games. My dad tried to get me into books but it didn’t work,” she chuckled.
“Really, what was your mom’s name?” the voice asked curiously.
“Harpy Heartstrings!” Lyra answered cheerfully.
The voice giggled, equally cheerful. “Oh I haven't seen her in years! How is Harpy?!”
Octavia and Twilight looked at one another in surprise while Lyra continued to make conversation with the voice. “She’s great! She’s living in Fillydelphia right now.”
“After this is over, I need to go over there and catch up. But enough of that, I need to explain the challenge.”
Octavia quickly grabbed Lyra and moved her over to the rest of the group. All of them gathered around her. “Lyra,” Twilight whispered, “do you know this pony?”
Lyra merely smiled. “Nope! I have no idea who my mom’s friends are,” she answered plainly. Everypony either glared at her or face-hoofed in response.
“Anyway. I’ll make this quick,” the voice began. “Since none of you have played Contra, I’ll tell you the basic rules.” Everypony looked up and listened carefully. “This is a 2D action shooting side-scrolling game. Your movements are limited here and you can only shoot in the basic directions. In front of you, diagonally, above, and below. You can move back and forth, but to make progress in the stage you have to move forward. No flight or excessive magic allowed. You have three lives but you only have one hit point per life. If you die, you get sent back to this point in the stage.”
“If we complete the stage, do we win?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“This is a survival challenge. If more than one of you complete this stage then we move on to the next stage. The pony who makes it the furthest by the time they run out of lives wins.”
Twilight nodded in confirmation, “Sounds interesting. How do we proceed?”
“Any way you want,” the voice answered, “You can go randomly, or you can go in a specific order so you can learn from one another.” The voice paused and made the pensive sounds of recollection for a few seconds. “Well, I think that’s everything. Congratulations to Lyra in advance.”
“What? Why?” asked Rainbow. She glared up at the sky then back to Lyra, who was busy hopping in place like Pinkie Pie. “Why are you congratulating her?”
The voice chuckled mischievously, “Just a feeling. Good luck nonetheless! Oh! One more thing! There’s a secret bonus in this challenge that will grant an additional amount of points. Have fun, my little ponies!”
The ponies waited for a while just in case the mare in the sky had anything else to say. They soon turned to see a large platform rise about an inch from the ground. The word START was engraved on it in large glowing green letters. Twilight turned to look at the other ponies, “Alright, so how are we going to do this?”
“Why don’t you go first, Rainbow Dash,” Octavia suggested, “I’m sure that you’d love to show us your skills.”
Rainbow smiled at the compliment and stepped closer to the starting point. Though when she stopped to think about it, she backed up and glared at Octavia, “No way! You just want to watch me go first so you can learn where the traps are!”
Octavia’s calm expression didn’t change. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. But if you don’t think you can do it then I’ll just have to ask somepony else.”
Rainbow stomped the ground for emphasis. “I could totally do this entire course in ten seconds flat!” defended Rainbow. “I just don’t want to show you how.”
Octavia shrugged. “Alright then. Would anypony else like to volunteer to go?”
Twilight fidgeted nervously. “I would like to watch somepony go first as well. I mean, we only have three lives.”
Finally, Pinkie and Vinyl stepped forward. “Chill, fillies. We got this!” said Vinyl.
Pinkie got into a low running stance. “Yeah! Watch how it’s done!” Pinkie inched forward onto the starting platform, and a pink gun materialized on a saddle on her back. The number 3 appeared in front of her and began counting down. Once it hit zero, all the enemies simultaneously turned to face her as if they were suddenly aware of her presence.
Instead of bolting forward like she appeared to be ready to do, Pinkie hopped high into the air. Twilight looked on in amazement, thinking that Pinkie had the right idea. The mare said that they couldn’t fly, but nothing prohibited jumping into the air. Pinkie continued to hop over various enemies, not even bothering to defeat them.
Unfortunately, as she made her way across a silver bridge she accidentally landed on top of an enemy. She instantly dematerialized and reappeared back with the group. Two pixel pictures if her face appeared above her, signifying how many lives she had remaining.
Pinkie scuffed her hoof against the ground, “Darn.”
Twilight trotted over to her and put a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s alright Pinkie. That was an amazing first try! Do you want to go again?”
“Nah, it’s my turn now!” Vinyl announced. She was already standing on top of the START platform with the gun on her shoulder. When the counter hit zero, Vinyl reared up on her back legs and burst out onto the stage with her gun blazing.
Vinyl found that all she had to do was look at an enemy for her gun to aim and shoot at them. She also noticed the enemies’ bullets, or whatever was being shot, moved at a far slower speed than actual bullets. This let her dodge and jump over them.
For the first few minutes she was doing fine. There were a few close calls from the turrets shooting at her from below. She had to stop looking where she was going so she could shoot down and destroy them. However, once she stepped hoof on the silver bridge, there was an explosion, and she found herself back with the others.
“Oh, what the hay?!” she yelled, careful not to curse.
Lyra chuckled and moved over to her. “You have to keep jumping when you get to the bridge to get past the explosions.”
Rainbow thrust her face into Lyra’s. “Wait, you knew about that and you didn’t tell us?”
“You never asked,” was Lyra’s response.
Octavia groaned. She glanced over at Sweetie Belle. “Sweetie, dear, could you go ask Lyra to share her information.”
“Why can’t you do it?” she asked.
“I don’t want to get disqualified for attacking a fellow competitor,” Octavia deadpanned.
Sweetie got the message and trotted over to the mint unicorn. “Miss Lyra. Can you please tell us what you know about this stage?”
“Why of course, young filly.” Lyra picked up the filly in her magic and held her up to face the stage. “You see, this stage is easy and there are only a few things you need to remember. Watch.” Lyra put Sweetie down and made her way over to the START platform. “I’ll show you.”
She walked out onto the stage at a fast but leisurely jog. To everypony's amazement, she effortlessly shot down each and every enemy that came towards her while dodging the bullets that they shot. “You need to be aware of everything on the stage. And make sure to shoot every enemy or else they may shoot at you from behind.”
Lyra made her way over to the silver bridges. “Like I said, you have to keep jumping.” She hopped over the first few feet of the bridge just before it exploded. She continued to jump until she made it to the other side unharmed. “If I remember correctly, there are three or four bridges like this one, and some have enemies on them, so make sure you know where you're jumping, Pinkie. You can also jump to a lower ledge on the cliffs.” Lyra hopped down the cliff and ran across a lower legs that allowed her to easily shoot down the turrets.
“Thanks!” cheered Pinkie.
“Amazing!” Twilight whispered.
Lyra continued to make her way through the stage, dodging bullets and shooting enemies, every so often yelling back advice to the group. During one part she explained how, if you’re dealing with an enemy with a gun that fires faster than yours, you can duck or fall to the ground and shoot at them. Eventually, she reached a large metallic-looking wall with several more gun turrets sticking out of it.
“This one is actually pretty easy, “ she yelled back. Jumping up, she reached a ledge that sat near the middle of the wall, “You just have to destroy the guns on the outside.” By this point, Lyra had collected enough power-ups that she had two rapid-fire guns on her back that each shot three bullets at once. She made quick work of the wall’s guns before hopping down to ground level. “Then you just have to shoot this big red eye thing to win before the guns return.”
Most of the ponies back at the start were cheering and offering thanks for the walkthrough. None of them noticed that Lyra had not actually completed the stage yet. While Lyra was standing there bowing and sucking in the praise, the guns reappeared and shot her from behind. She appeared back at the entrance of the stage, surprising everypony.
“Lyra?!” yelled Twilight. “What happened?”
Lyra shrugged, “The guns reappeared. It’s fine, I wanted them to hit me anyway.”
Sweetie Belle gave her a weird look. “Why?”
Lyra scoffed and gestured proudly to herself. “Well I don’t want to be the first one to win.” She looked around excitedly. “So who’s next?”
Rainbow Dash trotted up to the START with a confident look on her face. “I guess I’ll go next since Lyra already showed you guys how to win.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “And I suppose that you already knew all of that before now. Or were you simply planning on flying through the whole stage.”
Rainbow either ignored Octavia or didn’t hear her as she ran down the pathway at full speed. She figured that if she went fast enough the enemies that she avoided couldn’t catch up to her. Making her way to the silver bridge she skillfully hopped over the entire thing. However once she reached the other side she landed right in front of an enemy who didn’t hesitate in shooting her point blank.
Rainbow reappeared back with the others but before they could say anything she immediately ran back out into the fray.
~~~
After two more failed attempts, Rainbow silently fumed in her spot facing away from the others. After a few more seconds she disappeared altogether. Sighing in frustration, Octavia turned back to the rest of the mares. “Well, now that we’ve had examples of what to do and what not to do, who’s going next?
Sweetie Belle eagerly raised her hoof. “I want to try!”
“Are you sure?” asked Twilight.
“I’m ready!” Sweetie announced confidently.
“I call next after her!” yelled Vinyl also raising a hoof.
Lyra trotted around Sweetie in a circle, carefully examining her. After looking back out into the stage, she turned back with a surprised expression. “Guys... I think she has an advantage.”
“How so?” asked Twilight curiously.
Lyra gestured to Sweetie. “Well look at her, she’s a munchkin.”
“Hey!”
“She’s small enough that she doesn't even have to dodge anything. All of the bullets will fly right over her!”
Twilight looked back at Sweetie, then at the enemies in the distance. “Won’t they just crouch?”
“Nah,” waved Lyra, “These enemies don’t have that kind of advanced A.I. They can’t crouch and they can only shoot in your direction.”
Sweetie Belle’s face lit up in excitement and she quickly ran over to the START area. Gun on her back, the countdown began. “Sweetie Belle!” Sweetie turned back to Lyra. “Don’t forget that also means that you have to kill every enemy in front of you because you probably can’t jump all the way over them. They can’t shoot you, but you can still shoot them.”
Sweetie Belle smiled a determined smile before running out into the stage. Lyra reared back on her hind legs and cheered her on. “Go forth, Sweetie Belle! Go and realize your destiny!”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “Dramatic much?”
Lyra’s advice soon proved to be invaluable as Sweetie Belle seemed to breeze through the stage with incredible ease. Aside from the large wall taking her by surprise and costing her a life, Sweetie made it through without a scratch. As she stepped through into the tunnel behind the boss wall, a thin transparent sheet fell over the entrance and dimmed the available light.
Seeing nothing but darkness before her, Sweetie turned back the way she came, only to find that she couldn’t leave the area. “Girls?!” she screamed as she pounded on the nearly invisible wall. While she could see the girls all the way back at the entrance, she wasn’t sure if they could see her.
She almost began panicking until she finally heard Twilight’s voice. “Sweetie Belle! Can you hear me? Are you alright?”
“I’m in here!” Sweetie yelled, relieved that they could hear her. “What do I do now?”
Sweetie heard Lyra’s voice next. “See, she’s fine. Who’s next?”
Afterwards, Vinyl tried her luck at the game once again, only to lose twice more after getting cocky and trying to show off near the end. The first time she forgot about the cliffside gun turrets and the second she neglected to look behind her after jumping over several enemies. Twilight, other than one slip up on the second silver bridge, made it through successfully. Pinkie, after recalculating her hops, easily bounced her way through the stage. Octavia, having opted for the cautious approach, carefully made her way through the stage slowly, stopping every so often. However, she soon found herself swamped with enemies from both above and below as they reappeared before she could move on. Even though she was still cautious on her second try, Octavia learned from her mistake and made sure to keep moving.
Soon enough, Octavia made her way to the wall and, using Lyra’s tactics, blew it wide open to meet the others in the tunnel behind it.
Lyra, however, still stood at the START point. She sniffed and wiped away nonexistent tears. “They grow so fast!”
“Hurry up and get over here!” screamed Octavia.
“You’re the last one, silly!” screamed Pinkie Pie.
Following orders, Lyra ran through the stage with the same level of ease she had the first time. As soon as she stepped into the tunnel, however, the entrance closed behind them completely. Darkness surrounded them momentarily before large white words appeared before them.
P2: DJP3 Game Over
P4: RBD Game Over
Stage 2
Base 1
Begin! 10sec
Lyra waved her hoof to get everypony’s attention. “Get ready everypony. We might be split up during this one so I’ll tell you what’s up right now.”
Six Seconds
“Keep shooting the wall, and don’t try to cross the electric fence.”
Four Seconds
“Pinkie, keep jumping, but don’t jump on the bullets. Sweetie, your size won’t help you here so don’t rely on it.”
Two Seconds.
Sweetie looked around and noticed that everypony began to fizzle out of existence except Sweetie Belle. Lyra must have noticed it too, and began blurting out her information frantically. “Everypony else know when to jump and know when to fall to the ground. And make sure to watch out for the--”
BEGIN!
“Lyra?” Sweetie asked nervously. She turned in circles, only to see that she was completely alone this time. Suddenly a lethal stream of electricity buzzed to life in front of her and the room completely lit up to reveal another metallic wall. This one was red with a glowing blue center. Several pixellated enemies emerged from doors on the side. Sweetie backed up until she hit a wall behind her. “Anypony?” she whimpered.
~~~
“...ground grenades…” Lyra trailed off as everyone faded from view. Turning around, she watched as the game set up the stage. Lyra shrugged and snatched the gun from her shoulder and held it in her hooves. “Ehh, they’ll figure it out. Man, I wish I could see them when they find out about the final boss of this stage.” Falling to the ground, she looked down the sight and opened fire.
~~~
At the sight of all the enemies, Pinkie put a hoof to her muzzle in thought. “Well, Lyra said to keep jumping… but she also said to know when to fall to the ground… I got it!” Pinkie quickly went to work in trying to combine both pieces of advice. The end result included Pinkie hopping into the air, landing, and immediately hitting her stomach to the ground in a crouch while shooting the entire time.
This worked for all of 20 seconds until she accidentally landed on the electric field. After a gruesome shock, she dematerialized and reappeared back behind the electric wall. Pinkie once again put a hoof to her muzzle in thought. “Alright, maybe that wasn’t the best idea…”
~~~
“Ugghhh,” Twilight threw her head up to the sky and groaned as loud as she could. “What’s with all of the walls in this base?!”
Slumping over in annoyance, Twilight looked over the scene in front of her again. After making it through at least 4 identical rooms, she found herself confronted by yet another wall. This one was the largest by far, sporting at least 6 guns and 6 glowing red centers. All of them were shooting various kinds of projectiles. This meant that she either had to take the extra time to destroy the guns or simply dodged them and take out the glowing red centers. Logically, Twilight decided to destroy the guns first. She sighed dejectedly. “At least the pattern is predictable.”
~~~
Lyra chuckled as she looked over her remaining friends. Octavia and Twilight both sat in front of her and both were slumped over gasping for breath. “So… how’d ya do?”
“What does it look like?” huffed Octavia.
“So… much… jumping,” Twilight whimpered. Even with the princess’ promised increase in stamina, all of the rapid and spontaneous movement was beginning to take a toll on their endurance. Lyra simply continued her hushed chuckling and turned back to the large white words hovering in the air.
P1: PP Game Over
P5: SB Game Over
Stage 3
Waterfall
The area lit up and both Twilight’s and Octavia’s eyes shrank from what appeared. Lyra turned and gestured grandly with her hoof. “Then you’ll really hate this part.” An enormously tall waterfall appeared in front of them. Hundreds of rocky ledges and cliffs jutted out from the water to form a sort of puzzle-like pathway up the waterfall. Dozens upon dozens of enemies and gun turrets materialized on various places. “We have to climb this entire thing and reach the top to complete this part of the game. Keep jumping to dodge the bullets, but watch where you jump or you might fall on top of an enemy.”
“I can’t even see the top…” Octavia mumbled.
Twilight turned and yelled up into the sky. “Can I trade places with Pinkie Pie!”
To her surprise, Pinkie Pie actually responded. Her voice, like the gamemaster from before, echoed from the sky. “Sorry, Twilight. I wish I could do this part for you, I really do. But I lost, and the Princess says that I have to watch. Oh! The others are here, too. Say hi!”
There were various noises, and Twilight swore she heard the actual Princess Luna. “Pinkie, stop that! No, Vinyl, hand that over to me this instant.”
“Sup. I’m rooting for you, Tavi! You climb that bit--”
There were more noises, and the sound of something hitting the ground and being picked up. “Twilight!” This time it was Rainbow Dash’s voice. “Don’t let Octavia win! Use your wings! Don’t--”
“Rainbow Dash!” Luna’s voice whispered. It sounded far away. There were sounds of a scuffle and Twilight looked back at the others; they shrugged in response.
Twilight’s face grew even more confused at the sound of Pinkie’s giggling. “Keep-away from the princess!” Her giggling grew distant as Vinyl’s laughter grew louder. “Sweetie Belle catch!”
“Enough!” Twilight heard the telltale of magic, and everything finally grew silent. Lyra, Octavia, and Twilight all shared a glance at the unnerving silence. Soon, Luna’s voice came through once again. “I am not sure how Pinkie Pie found the device to communicate with you, but believe me when I say she wasn’t supposed to. Please continue with the challenge.”
Lyra slumped slightly and poked her bottom lip out in sadness. “Why doesn't anypony root for me?”
Octavia turned to her with a deadpan look. “Lyra, you have the gamemaster rooting for you. Remember?”
Lyra brightened up instantly. “Oh yeah.” She turned back to the waterfall. “Like I was saying, I think we can all do this one together, so make sure that you don’t accidentally jump into each other.”
Twilight and Octavia shared a glance before looking back to Lyra with sheepish looks. “Mind showing us how to do it?” asked Twilight.
“How are you guys on lives?” asked Lyra.
Both ponies held up a single hoof. Chuckling lightly, Lyra leaned back and examined her own hoof in a nonchalantly smug manner. “Well, I died back there too… but I guess I could show you two the way.”
Octavia opened her mouth for a witty retort, but before she could, Lyra immediately turned around, yelled, “Follow Me!” and hopped up to the next rock platform. Startled and unprepared, both mares scrambled after her. Since friendly fire was apparently disabled, all three mares fired continuously as they continued to jump from rock to rock to take out any and every enemy.
“Stop!” ordered Lyra. “Hit the ground.” Landing on a particular rock, four gun turrets turned to face the group. All three mares hit the ground just as they began firing off rounds. “Octavia, Twilight, you two shoot those. I got these. Jumping won’t help here.”
Following her orders, the mares made quick work of the static guns. Just as they exploded, Octavia stood up and prepared to move on. Unfortunately, Lyra wasn’t as fast in destroying her targets. As a result a few final shots were still flying through the air when she stood up.
“Octavia!” screamed Lyra. She leapt to catch Octavia just as she dematerialized. Tearing up, she fell back on her rump.
“Uh, Lyra?”
Lyra slammed her hoof on the ground angrily. “She was so young! It should’ve been me, dammit!”
“Lyra!”
Lyra raised her hooves to the sky and screamed. “It should have been me! Damn you, Contra!” She turned and grabbed Twilight. “It’s you and me now, Twilight. Let’s make these bastards pay!”
Twilight frowned at her. “Lyra, it’s just a game, and didn’t the princess lecture you about language?”
Lyra stared at her blankly. “Oh, yeah. Well, she can’t hear me. She turned off the com device, right?”
“I can still hear you, Lyra Heartstrings!”
“Eep,” Lyra flinched and hopped up to the next rock. Glancing back nervously, she said, “L-let’s keep going!”
Once again, Twilight followed Lyra’s every step and obeyed every command. She ducked when she was told to do so and only got up when Lyra did. Eventually, they made their way to the top of the waterfall, and the darkness lifted, revealing a grotesque-looking machine with blinking red eyes and an alien-like face. Two mechanical tentacles emerged from holes on separate sides of the machine, with each appendage ending in a flame covered wrecking ball.
Twilight, stunned and disgusted beyond belief, nearly fell back off of the cliff. “What in Equestria is that?”
Lyra looked up to it calmly and hummed. “You know… I still don’t know. I should look it up when I get home,” she smirked. “I should probably download this game while I’m at it too. It’s just as awesomely hard as I remember.”
“Hard? If it weren't for you this would be impossible.” Twilight gave her fellow unicorn a small smile. “Thanks for the help, Lyra, but I think this is it for me here.”
Lyra blushed and turned around to hide her face. “Oh.. well gee, thanks I-- Twilight watch out!” Lyra turned her head just in time to see the large mechanical beast shoot a fireball directly towards her friend. Acting quickly, Lyra hopped up and pushed Twilight out of the way, only to be hit by the fire and tossed off of the cliff.
Twilight scrambled to the side of the cliff. “Lyra!”
Lyra waved and yelled back up to her as she fell. “It’s up to you now!” She dematerialized before she fell out of view.
Turning around, Twilight looked up fearfully at the huge machine in front of her. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no! What do I do now?” Lost without her guide, Twilight almost began to panic. For a few minutes, it was all she could do to dodge the monster’s attacks.
She hopped to the side and ducked under a fireball. Taking a deep breath she calmed herself. “I should take out the arms first, right?” Finally, she began returning fire and soon enough, the first arm exploded. In retaliation, the beast opened his mechanical mouth and let out torrent of fire at her. Twilight’s first instinct was to use magic but she knew that doing so wouldn’t be an option. Instead, she fell to the ground and rolled all the way to the edge of the stage, just out of the fire’s aim.
Once the fire stopped, she jumped out and opened fire on the other arm until it too exploded. Afterwards, she aimed her gun directly above her at the head of the beast. It opened his mouth once again and spit out another wave of fire, causing Twilight to take cover. After the fire stopped, Twilight took her chance and jumped out to resume her attack, what she didn’t expect was for the head to release a singular fireball aimed directly at her.
Red filled her vision for a few seconds until Twilight opened her eyes to find that she was back in the place where defeated contestants go. “Oh… I guess I died then,” she sighed dejectedly.
Octavia and the others turned away from the screen and finally noticed that she was here. “Aw, Twi, what happened!” Rainbow groaned.
“Yeah, I thought you had that in the bag,” Vinyl added.
Luna shook her head sadly. “‘Tis a shame. If you had only lasted a bit longer you would’ve gained a massive lead over Lyra.”
Twilight cocked her head in confusion. “What? Why? I thought Lyra died. Where is she?”
Luna and the others moved away from the screen and allowed Twilight to take a look.
On screen, Lyra poked her head up from the cliff to check if Twilight was alive. Smirking, she hopped up to the boss and let loose a few final bullets to finish it off. Twilight looked nonplussed at the scene.
“What? How? I saw her fall off the cliff.”
“And she climbed back up after she respawned,” Luna added. “Then she simply waited on a lower level for you to die or succeed.”
Octavia stepped forward. She had on a mean and angry look. “Lyra tricked us. She was only helping us because she knew that she would outlive us anyway! All she wanted to do was laugh at our deaths and have fun at our expense. She just wanted to make the game more fun for her.”
“Well, she is better at the game than us,” Twilight reasoned. “She probably just didn’t want us to die too early. I thought she helped us because she wanted a fair match.”
“She had 30 lives!” Rainbow yelled. “It didn’t matter when we died! She was going to win from the start!”
“She also had extra stamina!” Sweetie added. “That’s why she was never tired from all the running and jumping.”
“Among other various advantages as well,” Luna commented further. She began listing off cheats with a smile. “More power-ups, lower enemy spawns, one hit kill on bosses.”
“What?! How did she do it?” Twilight turned back to the screen to see Lyra standing on top of the ruined and burning machine, laughing her butt off.
“Konami Code, bitches!”
~~~
Lyra found herself sitting on a rather comfortable surface. Looking around, she noticed that she was in some kind of large carriage with plush, fabric-covered chairs. “Where am I?”
“Welcome to the real velvet room.” Even the stallion’s voice sounded creepy and unnatural. Lyra didn’t even think that his lips were moving when he was talking.
Lyra turned and recoiled in horror at the sight of an elderly stallion with extremely wide pinprick eyes, and an even wider smile. Another, creme colored female earth pony that Lyra didn't recognize stood next to him. Several other ponies were also seated around him, all of whom were covered in dark cloaks.
The stallion continued, “Lyra Heartstrings, for your exemplary performance in today’s challenge, we are excited to award you the 6000 points you deserve.”
One of the ponies next to him lifted a black gloved hoof and added, “And for your clever, and might I say, discreet use of the Ponami code, I’m very glad to award you an extra 4000 points.”
“Konami Code,” corrected Lyra.
“No, it’s pronounced Ponami. That’s the name of the company, dear.”
Lyra put a hoof to her chin and glanced upward. “Ohhhh… neat. Well, you can send me back now,” she smiled.
The stallion’s smile dropped. “What? Don't you want the chance to guess who the creator is?”
“Oh, I know who it is. For sure. She pretty much gave me the answer. I just don’t want to reveal it.”
“Why not?” The creme mare asked.
Lyra’s smile grew wider than the stallion’s. “This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I want this thing to go on for as long as possible!”
The ponies and the stallion all shared glances before finally turning back to her. The stallion smiled once more and nodded. “Very well, then. We will respect your choice. Farewell.”
Lyra disappeared, and Discord transformed back into his normal self. The creme colored mare dissipated as well. The pony on the far right dropped her hood to reveal the actual Princess Luna. “Well, this was a waste of a location. I was hoping that Octavia would win this one.”
Another pony chuckled. “I told you that she knew the code. Anyway, we can always use this one next time as long as Lyra doesn't win.”
Luna thought on it for a second. “I do not know.” She turned towards where Lyra was sitting opposite of her. “Spirit Shift.”
The wall behind Lyra’s seat dropped to reveal a young blue-coated stallion with a red and blue mane, wearing a black driver’s hat and suit. He was currently harnessed to the front of a carriage. Hearing his name, he turned back to his princess with a smile. “Yes, ma’am. Should I actually start driving now?”
Luna shook her head. “No, thank you. How many locations do we have left?”
Spirit dug around in his glove compartment and pulled out a notepad. “We still have a good amount. Hopefully, we won’t have to repeat any anytime soon.”
Luna smiled. “Thank you, Spirit. You are a great help, as always.”
Spirit smiled and raised the wall back up. Nervously, he looked back down at the two remaining locations on his list. Taking out a pencil, he quickly got back to work struggling to think up new locations.