You were killed by KnightOfTheMoon!
Button dropped his controller and sighed. It wasn't even frustrating any more. No matter what approach he tried, he simply could not defeat this new player. Whoever it was, they had appeared on the net just a month ago and quickly climbed to the top of the tournament rankings.
Button had tried a direct assault with massive fire grenades and plasma weapons, but she always had a shield or a teleport ready, and used the smoke and confusion to catch him from an unexpected direction. He'd tried sniping her from the other side of the map, but she always managed to move at the last moment. He'd tried launching artillery, but she somehow managed to plant a dud shell and he blew himself up.
He'd tried laying magical ice traps to freeze her in place, but she burned her way out before he could finish the kill. He'd tried to slow her down with poison gas, but she always had exactly the right antidote ready. He'd tried laying an anti-magic field, layered on top of an anti-ballistic field to stop her firing any guns or rockets, but she took him out by throwing a knife instead. To make it worse, he was fairly sure it was a blunt butter knife.
He'd tried luring her in with bait, but she'd sent an illusion of herself to get caught in her place, then circled round to catch him from behind. He'd tried hacking the equipment supply drone and dropping an armoured carriage on her head, but she dodged it and rode the carriage right up to the control cabin he was crouched in. He'd tried teleporting right into her for a pyrrhic victory that would gib them both, but ended up half way through a wall instead.
He'd tried playing as a unicorn, a pegasus or an earth pony. He'd tried with a rare gryphon skin. He even attacked her with a dragon skin briefly, although it was a one-shot perk and the game only let you play it for a short time. He swooped down on her, closing the distance across the map in a few seconds, breathing a massive gout of flame across her position; but she teleported onto his back, got two hooves under his scales, and rode him into the nearest tower.
The net was awash with speculation about who this player could be. Not much was known: she only played late at night. Her avatar looked vaguely like Nightmare Moon, if you squinted. She played an alicorn (but anypony could unlock the alicorn skin if they played long enough, and it came with the serious downside of a mana drain every second).
Button had been killed dozens upon dozens of times now. He'd rocked at this game for the first few months, held a respectable place on the global score boards; until she appeared and barged her way straight to the top, smashing through every other player in her way. A few players had rage quit early on. Button had stuck at it longer than most, kept coming back for another try, but now he’d had enough.
As Button was shutting down, a message popped up:
KnightOfTheMoon sent you a PM. Click to read.
Really? They were pinging him? This should be good.
He clicked. The message popped up. Just like their game avatar, the player's icon was of Princess Luna. Though looking closer, he saw it was a stylised picture of the black princess chess piece.
gg!
a/s/t/l?
OK, that was a fairly standard gamer's greeting. It said, in abbreviation, Thank you for a good game. Could you tell me your age, gender, pony tribe and location? There was, of course, no reason to assume that anypony would tell the truth, but Button had no reason to lie. He replied:
15/m/ep/ponyvil
u?
I'm an earth pony stallion, fifteen years of age, currently residing in Ponyville. And yourself?
1371/f/al/canterlot
I'm an alicorn mare, one thousand, three hundred and seventy one years of age, living in Canterlot.
Whoever this pony was, they were clearly intent on playing the part of Luna. They had her age right, sure, but that was public record - or rather, history. His class had covered the Reign of Discord just a few weeks ago - until Discord himself turned up in the classroom uninvited. He'd first started correcting the facts as the saw them, then when he got bored of that he went back in time and changed some of the facts retroactively, to the increasing annoyance of their history teacher.
The chance of this player actually being Princess Luna was, of course, nil. The Princess had all manner of duties, the details of which Button Mash wasn't entirely clear on, but he was sure she couldn't spare hours every night to play a game like this.
Button toyed with the idea of playing along with the story, but it wasn't a gamer's style to swallow a lie like that. He had to call it.
srsly? prove it.
The reply came almost instantly.
ok. meet irl? sat?
Wait. What? She wanted to meet him? On Saturday? THIS Saturday? Talk about calling his bluff. Whoever this mare - or stallion - really was, they were willing to risk meeting him in real life. He'd see then who had the cajones to use Luna's identity online. He had to admit, he was curious. Of course it was probably going to be some insufferably pompous colt who just wanted to lord it over the pony he'd beaten. Still, it wasn't every day an offer like this came along, and his curiosity was burning.
He glanced at the clock on his wall. As of two hours ago, it was Friday morning. He didn't have anything planned this weekend, since the tournament he was going to compete in had been cancelled (something about parasprites in the server room). He could get on a train to Canterlot easily enough.
sure. canterlot? when?
He was expecting a lunchtime or afternoon, but the reply suggested meeting much later.
10pm. fountain square by library. nr donut joes.
ne Qs?
Do you have any questions? Hell yeah, he had questions. What sort of idiot approaches somepony online, knowing basically nothing about them, and arranges their first meeting in the middle of the night, in the quietest part of town...
Wait, was this... dangerous? Was he being set up? Should he hang up now, block that user, walk away? Or tell them he'd be there but not turn up? Or should he bring backup - somepony who could call the cops if this turned weird? He considered his options.
Sweetie Belle? No. He couldn't bring his ex along to what might turn out to be a date. That would be beyond rude. Besides, where one of the crusaders went, the other two were sure to follow, and screw everything up when they got there.
Rumble. No. The colt would tease him endlessly if he got wind of this, and he never really understood this whole gaming thing. He could hear himself trying to explain it for the umpteenth time.
His mother. No! A world of no.
Pipsqueak. Small, nimble, easily overlooked, surprisingly fast, good with a camera. Loyal and a little bit gullible. Yeah, he was probably the right choice. Button would ask Pipsqueak at school tomorrow.
just 1. why me?
This time the reply took a few minutes to arrive. He was about to give up and shut down when it popped up.
I find that you can tell a great deal about somepony from the way they play a game. In my day we would often challenge ambassadors and foreign dignitaries at a casual game of chess, to gauge the level of their duplicity. Your history books won’t mention this, but we foiled the Yak invasion of 103 AC through the judicious use of a pegasus piece. Lately the choice of game has changed, but not its significance.
You never gave up. Every loss spurred you to further ingenuity. You challenged me with innumerable strategies, remained ever surprising, forced me to improve at every step. Even in your dreams you conjured up new ways to outwit me. This online contest would have lost its shine long ago were it not for such a worthy opponent.
These are exactly the qualities I look for in my Lunar Guard. Their numbers are few, but each one of them has the wit, the cunning and the strength of character to overcome an army of idiots.
In short, I like you, Button Mash. And I'd like to offer you a job.
Huh.