//------------------------------// // Chapter ! // Story: Xbox Live Party with Pinkie // by LIGHTNINLANDEN //------------------------------// Xbox live party with pinkie. By: LIGHTNING FLARE It was morning and having the day nearly stripped away from me was making me anxious to do something other than lay in my bed and pretend I was sick. The weather was as typical as the weather gets in Washington during the spring, rainy and dark. I peeled the sheets from my body and slowly sat up. First things first, I thought as I caught a whiff of something that smelled downright demonic coming from my body. I hadn't realized how hot my room had gotten when I was sleeping. As I walked out of my bedroom and into my shower I caught the faint sound of the T.V. running down stairs. My father had Mondays and Tuesdays off and that day just happened to be a Tuesday. My father was a good man. Honest and hardworking. He was a police officer for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department. My Mom worked at a clinic not too far from the Portland International Airport, so my brother and I were quite often left alone in our house across the bridge in Vancouver. Once I got Pandora playing my favorite music, 50's swing, I jumped in the shower and quickly lost my breath. The shower was freezing cold, who the hell does this! Why is there even a setting for that low?! No one ever uses it! After the shower turned to a reasonable temperature I started to feel my muscles relax and the water start to wash away the stank left on my body from the night before. I got out of the shower and looked into the mirror. My body was very skinny with defined but little muscle on my bones. My hair short and brown looked messy and combed to the right in just the way to make it look relatively long. I wasn't tall but not short standing at about five foot eleven. I was always told I was a good looking young man but I never personally saw it in myself. In my parents eyes I was supposed to be the next big thing, the next president or Bill Gates or Nobel Peace Prize winner. But in my eyes I saw the truth, and you know what they say about the truth. The truth hurts, I saw myself as a wanna be everything. I tried playing sports but was never really athletically inclined; I tried excelling in school but always ended up fighting to stay focused. I even tried being really good at chess.... CHESS. I knew what I was even if it pained me to say it... I was a loser. I had friends and family who loved and cared for me, but I still had nothing to be a winner at, nothing I could say I'm number one in. It sucked, but it was the truth. I got sick of sulking around in front of the mirror and decided it was time to go get some food. I put on my best sick act and descended the stairs. "Ugh... ugh... cough I hate being sick" I said as I walked slowly down the stairs only to be greeted by silence. "Hello?" I asked to anyone still around, when I reached the living room just at the bottom of the stairs I saw that the TV was still on. “Hey!” No reply.... In almost ANY other situation I would be worried, but in this particular one...."PARTY!" I yelled! What can I say I was a 16 year old, if you were pretending to be sick you would do the same thing! With a spring in my step I made my way to the kitchen for the best meal of the day, breakfast. The only way for me to explain my love for breakfast was the vast range of creativity I could access through it, from steak and eggs to two simple pieces of bread with jam on them. Breakfast never ceased to bring joy to my morning. A delicious platter of eggs, English muffins, sausage, toast, bacon, and a tall glass of milk later I was in the game room settling down to enjoy some video games. I set into a couple games of multiplayer matches o several different games. After a peculiar game of Mass Effect 3 I got a very.... interesting party invite from one of the players in the lobby. 'P1NKIOU5 P1E1COU5 wants you to join a party!' With a puzzled look and a hesitant thumb I pressed the decline button. Now I should say I’m usually alright with joining parties with other players, trying to better our survival chances and my personal communication efforts… which usually amounted to shooting people or getting in their faces. But something about that invite just wasn't very… inviting, the simple fact is that it didn’t matter whether I answered it or not because I got the same invite a few moments later, that I should have answered. A couple of games later I heard a familiar sound and the reappearance of a persistent gamer either trying to make friends... or trolling. 'P1NKIOU5 P1E1COU5 wants you to join a party!' This time... I knew, just knew that it was in my own, and others, best interests to just press accept to that invite... still I used a hesitant thumb to press that green button... just in case. "Hello?" I asked in a timid voice. Once again I was greeted by the deafening tone of silence. Then through the microphone I heard an unsettlingly high voice. "One second..." And literally a second later my microphone blew up with a high pitched feminine voice. "HI I'M PINKIE PIE WANNA PLAY SOME GAMES WITH ME? IT'LL BE TONS OF FUN TRUST ME IM LIKE A PROFESSOR OF FUN. I THROW FUN PARTIES HAVE FUN FRIENDS EVEN HAVE A FUN PET AL...." 'You have left the party' Sweet... baby Jesus. After wiping what I thought was blood from my ear I reflected on what I had just heard. "Did she say her name was Pinkie Pie?" I asked to no one in particular. How in the world could someone be so... chatty? I mean I could've raced a jet with the speed she was using to spit out words. Then there was a sound and the… worst… possible… thing happened..... 'P1NKIOU5 P1E1COU5 wants you to join a party!' I wasn't escaping this one was I? There are some people in this world you just can’t say no to, and then there are people like P1NKIOU5 P1E1COU5 who don’t care if you’ve said no. With a sigh of irritability I joined the party once again. "Hello?" she asked, "Hey...." I replied back in an unusually shy tone, I was usually a social butterfly! Always talking in class goofing around with my friends and striking up conversations everywhere I go, but something about this one girl had me terrified to even think of starting up a conversation. Then I heard the single most depressing thing I have ever heard over Xbox Live. "Why did you leave me? Don't you want to be my friend?" she said through what sounded like sniffles and sadness. I felt like my heart just went a million degrees colder? What have I done? And why do I feel so inclined to fix it? "Hey hey, I never said that... in fact I never said anything besides hello! But that's beside the point... the point is I guess... I would... love? To be your friend." I'll admit I've never really had a good poker face, but luckily for me she didn't even need to hear two more words for her to jump back to a springy joyful response. "REALLY!?" she asked with jubilance. "Yeah really... heheh... so... uhhhh what do you want to do first, I guess?" Talk about an awkward ice breaker. I didn't even stop to think about what the reply may have been.... "MASS EFFECT, MASS EFFECT, MASS EFFECT!" The volume notch on my headset seemed to magically set itself to 2 with that last remark. "Right... Okay let's hop to it then shall we?" Just like that we were into the world of Mass Effect... in complete downed out noise of what sounded like a little girl who talked about EVERYTHING she saw. After a little bit of silence I tried to strike up conversation, and guess what decided to rear its ugly head back my way, you guessed it! Silence. I sat in the lobby for a good ten minutes just waiting for a "hey I'm back!" or "alright you ready!?" but instead I got me throwing a tennis ball in the air until I realized one simple fact. I could leave right now and block her from ever having contact with me ever again. Yet I didn't. That's when heard what I thought was the sound of what reminded me only of the men who carried the coconuts behind their leaders to signify them riding a horse in a movie I had seen once. "Hey I'm back! Are you ready to paaarrrtay?!" she said in an up risen tone. "..... Are you riding a horse?" "What? Oh!" she giggled for what seemed like forever then said "no silly I'm not riding a horse..." "Ok good I was beginning to woun..." I started to say before being cut off by the voice in my mic. "But I AM a pony!" she said enthusiastically through the mic. "Riiiiiiiiight... and I'm a little leprechaun from the future!" I said in a mock tone. She giggled again, "You're funny mister! We're gonna have TONS of fun!" Wait.... She still hasn't actually said who she is.. or what for that matter. "In all seriousness though who are you?" I asked in genuine confusion. "I told you I'm Pinkie Pie! I live in Ponyville in the country of Equestria! I'm a pony!" she stated as unflustered as one could be when speaking to another. ".... Hehe....." Okay just stay calm it'll be fine she's not actually a pony she couldn't be! That's preposterous, ponies don't talk! Or play video games, they don't have thumbs. "If you really don't believe me I'll Pinkie Pie swear that I am!" she said in a pleasant tone. Pinkie Pie swear? What the he... "Cross my heart hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." ..... Of all the millions of gamers online I have to be paired with some crazy woman who thinks she's a pony and lives in a place called Ponyville and wants to stick cupcakes in her eyes. "I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?" I asked not sure exactly how to handle the situation at hand. Sure I've had my run of crazy people over the Internet, but this one for sure takes the cake. "Pinkie Pie!" she stated. "Okay... "Pinkie Pie" can you just start the game please?" "Sure!" she replied in a joyous tone. With that the game went into a loading screen and the count down to the first wave began. As it started out I didn't have much trouble handling some of the smaller targets. Surprisingly enough for me the difficulty was set to gold and this 'Pinkie Pie' was handling herself pretty well. As the wave passed so did the onslaught of "over there" and "watch out" that was constantly spilling out of the microphone. "Whew those guys were tough huh?" she asked. Feeling like a grade A bad ass I replied in the coolest manner possible "What those guys? Pffft I could take them all day long just with biotics!" "Okie dokie lokie." was all I heard for the next wave as I constantly saved her avatar from dying in the game. I had no idea where she went but all that I did know is that it seemed like the whole might of the Geth armada was going against me. Finally both of our avatars fell to the floor and a big mission failed popped up on the screen. "Dammit!" I yelled in frustration "Where'd she go!" "Here I am!" it yelled as the little pink ball rolled off of my computer desk and onto my rolling chair. A pair of large fluorescent blue eyes stared back at me through a mess of pink curls that smelt of cotton candy. A tiny pony, no more than the size of my torso was sitting on its haunches in MY rolling chair. Once again god.... Why? "You're.... t-th-the thing.... i-in the place...." "Yeppy deppy!" it said with a charismatic smile. "B-but... h-h-how did you.... computer screen." "One of the many pros of being Pinkie!" she said with a slightly larger smile somehow. And with that I did the best thing I could possibly do in a situation like that...... I passed out. When I awoke I was in my bed. At first it was one of those times when you wake up and take a relaxing breath in... and realize you completely forgot about a pink pony sitting in YOUR rolly chair. I got up and rushed to the room adjacent only to find no sign of the little pink pony in the chair. I collapsed on the couch with a sigh of relief. "It was all just a dream!" Then I saw it, the most terrifying thing in the world. A little lock of curly pink hair... in MY DAMN ROLLING CHAIR. It had become clear to me that I had accidentally befriended an inter dimensional talking pink pony named Pinkie Pie whom had left a note on the desk saying "We should play again soon! Your friend, Pinkie." I then proceeded to face palm and collapse into my couch face first. It’s not all that bad. I thought to myself. It could be worse; I mean she could have been a dragon or something more terrible! At least she’s a cute little pony. My god did I really just think that. It was pink. The ENTIRE THING was pink! The best I could do right now was think it was... CUTE?! What's wrong with me! I need answers right now to too many different questions. I need confrontation. So I turned on the little black box and sure enough the same little blip popped up on my screen about ten seconds after logging on. "P1NKIOU5 P1E1COU5 wants you to join a party!" So I got my microphone on, set it to a low volume and pressed accept. "Hey!" she said the instant after the noise confirmed I had joined the party. "Hi.... Ehhh... Look we need to talk." I started but was cut off by a frustrated huff. "What is it?" I sighed "huh?... Oh i-it's nothing, just someponies being meany weany pants." she said in a clearly frustrated tone. Somepon.... never mind "Well... ok then, we need to talk about what happened earlier today." "Ooooo! You mean when I found your computer and said, Here I am!" she said in her I'm going to take usual happy tone. "Ehhh yeah... How did you do that?" I asked out of pure curiosity. "I dunno? I'm Pinkie Pie. Everything I do just kinda happens." she said sounding almost confused. "So I'm going to disregard that, on a count of it doesn't make sense, but apparently sense goes out the window in pony town...." "Ponyville." she said. "Right... So you're a pony... from Ponyville?" I asked hesitantly. "Yeppy deppy!" in a cheery tone. We launched in to a conversation about all of her friends and the adventures they had and how many times they had saved their town. As all of this was coming crashing down I began to think of this apparently mare, in a different light, she wasn't just some annoying hyped up insane pony from a different world. She was a being just like me, in the sense that she, like me, had a heart, mind, and soul just the same as I do. She had feelings and thoughts and beliefs. Just like any human being on earth. These six friends had been through the thick and thin together never letting another down, always there for one another even if just to say "you'll get 'em next time!" Even though it seemed so unreal to be actually talking to a pony in a magical land, the friendship in the stories she told seemed so real and powerful. I simply let her talk, let her tell the stories and inform me of her land until I was one-hundred percent caught up. Which accidentally took a couple of hours to complete until a different problem arose. My parents were home. I hurriedly told Pinkie I'd be back on in a little bit and turned off the console. I sprinted to my room shut the blinds and started to make a terrible snore as I pretended to be asleep. "I know you're awake!" my mom said in a sing song voice. "So do the damn dishes!" Jeez. Guess I wasn't in need of any sleep any ways, so I got down stairs and started in on them. As I sat at the sink washing and placing the dishes in the dishwasher I couldn't help myself but think about the little pink pony I had been talking to all day. She was a kind soul with a beautiful heart, she just showed them off in much more... unconventional ways. She still meant well though through all her stories one theme was prominent. She was ALWAYS happy. Well almost happy that is, that incident with her birthday party was kind of a doosey. It made me think of what she was like when she wasn't happy, or if she ever was unhappy. She had to be at some times... right? Everyone’s unhappy sometimes. It didn't take long for me to finish the dishes. Once I did I rushed back up the stairs to the game room. When I logged on there was no invite not even a hint that the Gamer tag even existed. I lay back with a depressed sigh. Then turned off the console and went to my room. With so many stories to think about my mind wanted more. There was one more thing on my mind, it was worry. I was worried for Pinkie because to be honest something was clearly up with her. Her faltering mood throughout the stories and her sometimes timid voice compared to others in the background clearly suggested something was not right on the home front. But I guess I'll never know.... or so I thought. (A/N, Hey guys! So I’m really excited to be posting this and finally getting involved in the community on the next level! Couple of things to touch down on, first the story itself, if on the off chance that you would like, me to continue on with this story please let me know. Couple of ways you can do this, simply like the story, drop a favorite, or come and follow me on twitter. @LIGHTNINLANDEN. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please note this story was meant to have more to it, but in any case criticism is highly encouraged and appreciated! Thanks again!)