My Little Forumites are Magic

by Mx Story Anomalax

Cheerilee, Please!

Kraine was leaning against a book case as the others told about everything that happened, and how Rainbow Dash had died even though she had shown the possibility of being a breath player. Kraine said this was either a glitch, or there were missing players. She had doubts that it was a glitch, because she'd heard some of the others' stories, and glitches don't just happen like that all the time. She looked up, gnawing on her lip as she thought about all the implications.

Machine Whisperer was asked to bring out his computers, and he smiled, pulling out nine computers. Kraine paid attention to small details, knowing that the game often gave hints about things - this was mostly notable in Skaia's clouds and the horrorterrors. She took out nine envelopes, all with server and player discs. DW started looking through them, trying to see time, being a lord of the aspect after all, and found that the future seemed to be cracking up. Like the alpha timeline was shaking all wibbly wobbly. He saw small visions of some of the players - a few of them he didn't recognize. But counting the ponies, excluding him and the godtier players, there were 10 players he counted. This made him decide to look deeper, but closer, and saw that Applejack had two computers. He informed them of this in his charismatic voice, and mentioned that following the alpha timeline was always for the best, as doomed timelines and doomed players often sprouted from the choice to leave the alpha timeline. Machine paired up every computer with an envelope, telling them that he'd try to make a tenth computer; although there was no tenth envelope.

Kraine seemed satisfied with this and let Applejack take two home.

---

Applejack's voice came from behind the door. "Not now Applebloom, I'm tryin' to figure out this fancy pantsy cockamamey device. Applebloom pouted, her two best friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looking down. Applejack had told them that she needed to focus on the devices she was given, and that she needed time to think of who the other player might be. Applebloom went off with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to the treehouse, in order to plot a way to see what all the hubbub was so recently. Their curiosity was even stronger because whenever she asked what happened to Rainbow Dash, they always told her she was on vacation.

Later in the night, while she finally decided to sleep, Applebloom went in and saw two white cards on the table with pink trim and back. The computer looked really fancy and practical at the same time. She got into the chair and put a hoof on the computer, trying to figure out what each somewhat-large button was for. She put a hoof on the captchalogue card and when she looked at it closely, flipping it around, her ears stood up on end when the computer disappeared, a picture of it appearing on the card. She almost squealed in excitement, never seeing anything like this before. She saw a second envelope on the desk, not knowing what it was, and tried to put that in the other card that was sitting out. And it happened. She almost squealed with absolute joy at this new toy. She carried the cards with her, not quite understanding, and intending to try to figure it out with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo in the morning before Applejack found it was gone. She giggled, putting a hoof over her mouth as she tried to only step on the floor boards that wouldn't creak. Applejack slept like a log.

In the early morning Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were quick to get away from their homes. Scootaloo was whizzing by on a scooter with her wings, pulling along a little wagon that Sweetie sat in. As soon as they got to the tree house, they were met with an excited Applebloom.

Applebloom informed them that she had spent some time taking the strange device apart, trying to figure things out that way, but was unable to do anything with it, and put it back together. They'd started the computer up and each tried to work it, having a difficult time. They tried at the VERY LEAST ten things to get it to display a different screen, but all were to no avail. Then Scootaloo piped up, "why don't we ask Cheerilee about it? She knows a lot about things, maybe she'd know how to work it!" Applebloom and Sweetie looked to each other and nodded, before looking back to Scoots and smiling. Applebloom recaptchalogued the computer and envelope and the trio were on their way to Cheerilee's house.

When they knocked on the door and Cheerliee answered, she looked like she'd woken up recently - wrinkles around her eyes and a cup of coffee around her hoof. She sighed, not wanting to deal with this right now. "Can it wait, children?" The trio looked toward each other and shook their heads. They were impatient and wanted to figure this out now.

Cheerilee welcomed them inside as she got another cup of coffee; although this time she made sure there was more caffeine in it, as well as a headache pill. "So what's the big rush that you three couldn't wait until later?"

Applebloom responded cheerily, telling her about the computer and cards - telling her everything she had learned (which wasn't much) - and brought the computer and envelopes out of it. Cheerilee recognized what it was, but was taken aback by how new, fancy, and technologically advanced it was. She had learned to work with big, bulky computers that had small screens, and this was piquing her curiosity. She still had a headache and asked them if they could come back later, and then she'd tell them about it. They looked sad, but agreed, after a little bit of complaining, and exited to try and do something to pass the time until later that afternoon, Applebloom happy that Applejack was sleeping in today.

Cheerilee opened it up and looked for the power button, which she found soon enough in the upper left corner. Her mane was frazzled and the caffeine was waking her up, but what drove her the most was her curiousity of this new computer. She looked over to the envelopes and opened them up, revealing two discs. This made her extremely curious as she fiddled around with the computer, typing in the right commands to get it started, and seemed as slow to get up and start as she was.

And then she started wondering where the trio of fillies had gotten this stuff from. She would have to confront them about it later. Right now she wanted to explore - especially this program called the Ponynet that Machine Whisperer had put on all the computers. She realized there wasn't much - the basic browser hosting a list of different sites that Machine Whisperer frequented, and visited those, surprised with the information contained within, but found that there weren't many other sites that she could get to; although the search engine had enabled her to find a few other things. It took about a minute for a page to load, but that gave her enough time to wind up for her day, thankful she intended to stay inside almost the entire day to get chores done.

Applejack was roused from her deep sleep by scratching on her window pane. She looked up, turned around and buried herself under the covers. It wouldn't stop though and she soon grew irritable. "WHAT IS IT!?" The owl was un-phased and had a small, thin scroll in his claw. Applejack grumbled and opened up the window, unfurled the letter, and grumpily threw in the trash before grabbing the captchalogue cards with the second computer and envelope, not noticing she was supposed to have two. She needed more sleep, considering she had been working hard the past month, the therapy slowly helping. She headed over to Twilight's post-haste.

---

Kraine asked where the second computer and envelope was. Applejack's eyes widened hugely before she embarrassingly said she lost it. Kraine told her not to worry, as things like this were common for Sgrub. Sburb? Fuck, whatever.

Twilight Sparkle and Kraine had called the meeting, deciding today was the day last night (especially because there were no meteors to be found; although they could just have not entered the portals yet) - there was no more waiting around. This had to happen now. Kraine had heard about Rainbow Dash and had decided that someone ought to bring Rainbow Dash's house in, just in case there was a glitch of some sort. Twilight decided Spike should be the envoy of this mission (especially since he was "the new Rainbow Dash"), choosing Gia to go with him. She put a cloud walking spell on both of them, and Spike was taken hold of and flown up to Rainbow Dash's house.

Twilight and Kraine looked at those were still there and started pairing them off. Kraine seemed troubled about the lack of meteors, and was uncertain if this meant something would be wrong with the game, they were going to fail getting in, or that it was just going to take a little time.

The players weren't necessarily happy with who they were paired with, but they went along with it.

Seeing as Aranea had probably been sent here for a purpose, despite being doomed, Kraine and Twilight paired her with Applejack, as hope and light were similar to each other in some ways.
Pinkie was paired with Ying - both being space players and figuring they'd be able to help each other.
Vivere was paired with Zecora, as Vivere could destroy space and Zecora was apparently a void player.
Twilight Sparkle paired up with Phynicxs, figuring that since they both preferred to help friends more often than their selves, they would make a pretty good team, working together to get stuff done.
Typo was relieved when he didn't need to team up with Rarity, and Smeareyes had actually decided to team up with her, as they figured rage powers and heart powers, as weak as her powers were, would be similar enough that they could work with each other. Especially since one of them was a seer and would be able to see these things.
Typo, as much as he didn't want to be, was paired up with Machine Whisperer. They both weren't sure about this and wondered if it would make the game harder.
And finally, Vark was paired with Fluttershy. Vark was very unhappy about this, but took solace in the idea that she might be able to liven her up more. Maybe do some karaoke together, do a little DDR with her, and maybe she'd find good songs and open up and be less shy without being a meanie mean-pants.

As it appeared there was going to be at least one more player, Jordan was kept in reserve, and would try to find the other player and pair up with him or her. Applejack mentioned that Applebloom had probably taken the extras and decided that he should ask her first.

Kraine decided to stay behind with DW to see that, if there were any meteors coming, if they could try to slow it down if not stop it completely. They didn't really like the loss of life, and both felt they'd be more integral here than in another session, deciding that the others would be more likely to be of help.

Finding one of the cutie mark crusaders had been easy. Sweetie Belle was looking into the library as the pairs filtered out, nervous and excited for the upcoming "game." When Jordan came out, he recognized Sweetie Belle and went over to her, asking if she knew where the black machine was and an envelope. Sweetie gasped and ran away, afraid she was in trouble. Jordan would have let her run away, but he was feeling a little impatient, wanting to get the game started as soon as possible. He used his life powers, a vine breaking out of the cobblestone and wrapping around Sweetie's legs, causing her to fall foward onto her stomach, "oof!" The filly's voice was high and a little nervous as she looked back. Jordan looked a little fierce at the moment, which scared the crap out of Sweetie, which some would hope was literal, but it really wasn't. Jordan kneeled down beside her and asked again, slowly, if she knew where the items were, having assumed she must definitely be guilty of something if she had to run away. Sweetie looked to the side, then to Jordan and whispered.

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because I'll get in trouble."

Jordan smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. But this is very important. I need to find these items."

Sweetie looked down, feeling defeated, and a little calmer. "Promise?"

Jordan did the Pinkie Pie swear, making the motions - cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. Sweetie seemed relieved and Jordan let her up. Sweetie informed him that they'd taken the computer to Cheerilee's house so that hopefully she could figure it out. She said that when they'd checked on her she'd asked for a little longer, seemingly focused intensely on the screen. Sweetie said she seemed to be reading something, but didn't want to bother her too much, believing she'd show them how to use it soon.

Jordan nodded and asked Sweetie if she could show him where Cheerilee's house was.

When they got there, Jordan knocked on the door. "Just a minute!"

When she opened the door, her jaw hung slack, recognizing the human before her as being one that occasionally wandered around town, seeming to enjoy everything the place had to offer, as though he'd been deprived of it somehow. Cheerilee instantly smiled, brightening up now that it was later in the day off, and welcomed him inside. When Jordan came in, he saw the computer and asked her about it, noticing the envelope was already open. He was surprised at this, and before he could stop himself he asked what she had been doing.

Cheerilee, not getting the hint, just spoke. "Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo brought it to me today. I know it's a computer - I've dealt with one before - but this is so far advanced I was taken aback at first. But after learning through it, I started finding interesting things, one of which was this "web," thing, and how she'd found information on it, and when she typed in the name of the CDs in the envelopes, she had gotten a whole... Walkthrough? Yeah, that word worked. That was the word used. She told him that she'd found a walkthrough of the envelope, and had been slowly learning about it over time, figuring out it was very dangerous and was coming to the conclusion that she ought to store it safely away, if what the site said was true.

Jordan listened intently, nodding along, and told her that the game was meant to create a new universe. She told him she'd already figured that out, but due to the fact the meteors started when the game does, she didn't think it was a good idea to start it. Jordan informed her how the meteors come either way, which shocked her.

They started discussing the game and what it involved, Jordan using his own experience to help explain it. Cheerilee took to it quickly, and when Jordan told her his friends intended to enter the game in order to make a new session and hopefully a new universe through those brave enough to face the game, Cheerilee decided that she should be there, thinking that her presence would help. Jordan smiled at this, going with his gut instinct and the first thing that came across, figuring this was one of the players. He told her to install the game, and walked her through it, as she had never tried something like that before and wasn't sure how. Sweetie had long since left as Jordan pulled out an extra strife specibus and gave it to her. He explained to her what it was and what it did, giving her a captchalogue card with it. Cheerilee was about to start gathering supplies for the game, but Jordan laughed and told her it wouldn't be necessary.

It was time.

Author's Note:

Thought about making the title of this chapter "Onegai Sensei" due to the pun and reference to an anime I watched some time back.