//------------------------------// // Before (edited) // Story: The Dovahkiin - An Equestrian Prophecy // by Rocky Runner //------------------------------// "Aaaaannnnd... HEADSHOT!!!" My brother walked right into my trap, so foolishly turning the corner right into the sights of my scope, and my sniper rifle. "Aww come on, that's not fair!" My seven year-old brother whined. "It's completely fair, you just need to stop being stupid." I said, preparing myself another ambush for him. "No you're not! You're always killing me!" He complained. "That's the objective of Custom Match, idiot." I chuckled, watching the screen as he, once again, came into view. "HEADSHOT!!!" I exclaimed, laughing as his character made a dying noise. "Nope nope nope nope." My brother hit Pause and then hit End Game. "Dude, what the hell?!" "You weren't being fair!" "I was too!" "You don't let me win!" "Well screw you, I'm playing my laptop now." I dropped the Xbox remote and grabbed my laptop from my desk, and started walking out of the room. He fussed again and I just ignored him. Don't know why he was crying. He knew exactly what he was getting himself into when he wanted to play Custom Match with me. I let out a groan upon hitting the living room couch, smiling as I opened up my laptop and heard it powering up when I turned it on. The screen then illuminated and I saw my laptop's profile pic, a dragon, pop up next to my username and "Enter Password". I did the usual routine with that and hit Enter, then waited as it loaded me into my desktop. It loaded and the usual blank blue background greeted me. I should probably put something on there. I just never quite found the time. Or energy to. Laziness. I think now's the time for introductions! Let's start that simply. I'm John. I'm a soon-to-be sophomore in high school, superb videogamer, and unbeknownst to almost everyone around me; I'm secretly a brony. Like, only one person knows, and that's my best friend. I'm only being so open about with you because... well, let's face it, you couldn't possibly let anyone close to me in on this secret. Anyways, let's get on with the story. I double tapped the Medieval 2 icon and then started Vanilla when the Launcher box showed up. As unfortunate as it is, I did not own Total War: Attila yet. I had a taste of it last weekend when my best friend let me have a few hours on it... and it certainly put Medieval 2 down the drain. I definitely preferred Attila's soundtrack over M2's, but I had yet to purchase Attila. For now, I could settle for advancing farther in my Vanilla Hotseat Campaign. Normally you can't play in Hotseat mode with Vanilla, but with a little modding it's possible. And worth it. Sure, if you play every faction a turn may last forever, but hey, that way you practically control all of the game... and from experience, I can tell you it's quite entertaining. Playing the aggressor one turn and then playing the defender the same turn with the challenge of defending your territory certainly makes for... uh... I shall use the word craziness to finish that sentence off. Not to forget that you get to control the Mongol and Timurid hordes when they arrive, which adds to the awesomeness. If you play on 0.5 timescale, then 273 turns of establishing dominant empires throughout Europe, Asia Minor and Northern Africa become challenged by the Mongol Horde... unfortunately, it was only turn 106 for me. I got probably three turns down before I turned my laptop off and headed down for dinner. Just chicken for tonight's meal. Can't forget grandma's goodies that she hides in the cabinet, though... that she thinks she can hide food from me is a laughable concept. When will she learn? After dinner... well, not much happened. I sat on the couch and watched some TV, grossed out my mom with the Killer Bees from Hell documentary, and then "went to bed", which for many people involves going to bed and closing their eyes, followed by unconsciousness. For me, it meant "play videogames all night long", which translated to "stay up until 1 AM reading stories on FiMfiction." To be honest, I'm not sure what I'd do without that website. Probably something useful with my life... nah. What would likely be the case is I'd waste my life building stuff on Minecraft. Or watching TV. Probably the former. There is an option three. While not the greatest, I'm also a decent artist. Sort of. Mostly drawing. Option three would be creating designs for alien tech and craft, like I did a little while ago with an AT-ST model. I had a thought a while before that which went along the lines of "what if the Empire from Star Wars managed to harness magic?" So, what I ultimately did was draw a side-view of an AT-ST. I made the part the head rotates on and drive engine is located a little longer, and added a pair of "arms" equipped with blaster/laser cannons and an energized "sword" roughly 20 feet long. But there's more. I also increased the height of the AT-ST. My modified version stands at about 39 feet high. And I'm still not done. I also added a rocket launcher on either of its arms. And for a final addition, I added a unicorn horn-shaped spire towards the front of the top of the modified AT-ST's head. Obviously, this is the part that uses the magic, and it would be capable of using magic that only powerful unicorns (or alicorns) could be capable of pulling off, such as rapid self-repairment. The spire would glow just like a normal unicorn's horn would, and whatever it's casting magic on would glow the same color. Totally overpowered Imperial walker. And what did I name such a weapon of war? All Terrain Magic Harnessing Transport. Simply: AT-MHT. Sorry Ewoks, your trees are now no longer a problem. As far as my creativity is concerned, usually I only draw fantasy maps for my brother and I to kill time... and to appease him when he demands I play something with him and there's little we agree on. And playing on my own fantasy maps got about 20% easier when I realized I could use Paint for our maps (not that I'm new to my laptop, I just never considered it). Other than that... I don't do much, besides being a money drain on my parents. And now, I'm at the age I could be having a job right now... but I don't. Last time I did have something close to it, which was helping my grandpa mow lawns, I accidentally broke someone's picket fence with a weed whipper, and then proceeded to get an eye full of dirt. Not a great start to having a job of some kind. Since then, he hasn't asked me to mow lawns. I don't blame him. I can only imagine how terribly my first real job will go. Anyways, I'll move on. Following dinner, I had the sudden remembrance that tomorrow I'd be going for a drive. On the freeway. With two people: the Driver's Ed instructor and a kid named Tyler. And I'd be laying my life in Tyler's hands for part of that drive. Oh God... To tell ya, I was a good driver. Not perfect, but good. I can maintain my speed, not freak out next to semi trucks, cross intersections with virtually no problems... I was practically a pro. Tyler... not so much. He stays about twenty miles under the speed limit. The only time that's not the case is on the back roads. Also, he's not the greatest at crossing or turning on an intersection. And I'd be laying my life in his hands on the freeway?! Yeah, no thanks... but that's how it would be anyways. I probably didn't have a thing to worry about. He surely hadn't gotten us into any trouble this far... this far. I honestly doubted his ability to get us through the freeway ali- Stop it, brain. Quit doing that! Why must you always make me think about the worst-case scenarios? ... Huh? Huh?! ... No answer? ... Coward... So anyways, I spent about the next half hour hyperventilating. Fun times. If only I had known that my worst fears would come true...