Unbroken

by PonyFromSpace

The one who wants to deny

2. The one who wants to deny

---

I speeded over the streets.
My saddlebag was now holding my laptop, my gaming equipment, a bag of chips and the letter.

I didn't know why I took the letter with me.
I just grabbed it when I hurried to get my stuff.

I huffed and puffed when I arrived at Button's place.
I had had my share of running for today.

I knocked on the door and Button's mother opened it.
"Shutter, well, you are early", she said, while she looked around whether I was alone.
"The party doesn't start in half an hour!", she continued.

I recalculated. It normally took me fifteen minutes to go from my house to his house, my mom had said I was going to be late.

Dang

Mom had tricked me out of my room.

I was relieved my clock might be fine after all, if I had taken five less minutes to get here this time, but that didn't reduce my agitation.

Mrs. Mash looked around again.
"I'm sure Button won't mind you're a bit early. Come in."
"Thanks ma'am", I answered.

She let me in and I saw mister Mash was knotting his tie.
They were readying to take the train to Manehattan.

"Button and Sweetie Belle are upstairs. They're playing a game, I'm sure they'll let you play with them. If you want anything, just ask Button, he knows where to find everything", Mrs. Mash told me.

I nodded, and said: "Okay ma'am, have a fun evening."
"Oh, we will", she said as she winked at her husband.

I knocked on Button's door, but they didn't hear me.
I slowly pushed it open. They were sitting on his bed.

Their laptops were lit and Button was using the oculus.
He was playing a horror game with it. Slender Mane or something alike.

The virtual reality system didn't allow him to see what was actually happening around him, since it covered his eyes completely, so he didn't see me enter the room.

Button smiled and said: "I'm gonna beat this monster, Sweetie Belle."
It was a fake smile. He was clearly nervous.
An in-game monster would probably jump him out of nowhere.

Sweetie Belle giggled and put a hoof in front of her lips, ordering me to remain silent.
I stood there for a few seconds, and tension was rising for Button in the game.

Suddenly, Sweetie growled and gave Button a small push on the shoulder.

The terrified foal was launched into the air, screaming and yelling.
It took him half a minute to realise Sweetie Belle had pushed him.
He started to calm down, when suddenly, he started yelling again, while in-game Button was being eaten by a monster on his screen.
He removed the oculus.

"Dang it, Sweetie Belle", he complained, "why did you do that?"
"Because you're cute when you're scared", she said, and she gave him another push.

Button seemed to relax a little bit, then, he noticed me.

"Shutter? Hi, eh, how long have you been standing there?", he asked.
"Long enough to see Sweetie Belle prank you", I said.

Sweetie Belle patted him on the back.
"You were brave", she said.

I tried hard not to laugh. 'Brave' is not exactly how I would've described his panic attack.

"Why are you so early?", Button asked.
"Mom threw me out", I responded.
"I see. Want to play a game?"
"Sure, what game?"

Sweetie Belle clicked away a few windows on her screen.
"We could practice a bit for Minecraft", she replied.

So we did. We placed our laptops on Button's desk and started up the game.

Button and I just kept dying.
I died so much because I'm simply bad at the game.
Button probably died so much because he was giving all his good gear to Sweetie Belle.
She chuckled when Button accidently set himself on fire.
I tried to save him with a bucket of water, but a zombie pushed me into a pool of lava before I could reach him..

---

We played for half an hour, and I forgot about the letter, the worries and all bad things that had happened that day.
I was happy.
Only to be pushed back into reality by the doorbell.

Button logged out of the game and went downstairs. His parents had already left.
Sweetie Belle and I followed Button to the door.

After he had opened it, Applebloom and Skootaloo came in.

"Hey girls!", Sweetie said, "do you have your laptops?"
"Of course", Skootaloo answered.
They put their heads together and yelled: "Cutiemark Crusaders LAN- gamers, yaaay!"

Button and I passed a frown.
"We should probably use the large table in the living room", Button said, and the girls put their laptops down on the table.
While Button looked for an extension cord, I fetched our laptops from upstairs.

It didn't take long before the doorbell rang again.
This time, Featherweight and Pipsqueak were at the door.

They added their laptops to the ensemble and Featherweight picked some spare LAN cables from his saddlebag.
Again, the bell rang.

This time, Dinky Hooves and Threshold were at the door.
I had only just closed the door when somepony knocked on it.

Now, a whole group of ponies had arrived:
Nya, Puffles, Terrin, Caundles and Tais.

It felt kind of strange to let them in, because some of these ponies had laughed at me when I had received that letter.
On the other hand, this was Button's party, so I didn't really have a saying on who could and who could not join.

We all gathered at the table and Button performed a head count.
There were fourteen of us.

We started up the game on a server Button was hosting.
It was a 'survival games' map, so we had to kill each other in order to win.
We played for hours, and again I forgot about it all.

Next to me were Featherweight and Applebloom.
Applebloom had just died and she wasn't happy about it.
Whilst Puffles was still doing a victory dance for defeating her, Skootaloo blew him up with TNT.

I just defeated Nya when Applebloom bended towards me, and spoke with a tone so only I could hear her speak.
"Are you going, tomorrow, to meet your mystery mare?", she asked.

I was furious.

"You read that letter?!", I yelled, completely forgetting about all the faces around me, "Don't you understand how personal this is?"

She cramped together with every word.
I must've looked manic, crazy enough to attack ponies, because Applebloom was one of the last ponies to cramp in the face of danger, let alone an angry foal.

"Uh, Shutter?", Featherweight responded.
"What?!", I yelled, way too loud.

Featherweight pointed at my laptop. I had smashed the keyboard with my hoof.
I raised my hoof and a few of the keys fell next to my second broken device of the day.

I tried to calm down, but it was of no use. I was infuriated.

Skootaloo killed my character in the game.
"Yes!", she shouted, only to realise everypony's attention was now aimed towards me.

The little Pipsqueak was the first to move.
He walked towards me and grabbed my hoof.
I let him, I didn't care about anything anymore.
He brought me to Button's garden and said: "You need fresh air. That'll do you good."

After that, he went inside. I stood there.
I was grateful the little foal had brought me outside.
I wouldn't have been able to say anything if I'd stayed at the table.

I reflected on my day while I enjoyed the cool evening breeze.
I had broken two pieces of state of the art technology, I had ran out of class in the middle of a lesson, locked myself up in my room, alienated a hundred ponies and put a damper on Button's party.
Yes, I was a very likable pony.

---

I heard the door open and close again, as Applebloom, Threshold, Sweetie Belle and Button came outside.

"Are you okay?", Button asked.
"No, I'm not", I said.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have read it", Applebloom apologised.
"All forgiven", I said, "I just didn't want to be reminded of it."

Sweetie Belle scratched her neck.

"You do know you'll have to choose, right? You can't just ignore something like this."

I swallowed the last bits of my anger.

"You're probably right."
"So, what will you do?", Threshold asked.

I wanted to say no, I wanted to run away again, run as far as I could.
"I'll... I think I'll check it out, see what's really going on."

Button nodded.
Sweetie Belle put up her thinking face.
"It could be a trap set by Diamond Tiara and her following."
"Don't worry, the Crusaders will keep an eye on her, you'll be safe and sound", Applebloom smiled.

They turned around and went back.
Almost forgot! Threshold's question!

"Threshold?", I said, before she could follow the others inside.
"Yes?", she answered.
"I sit underneath that tree because it's calm and quiet, I don't like being in the crowd."
"Okay, I figured it'd be something like that", she said, "I had already forgotten I had asked the question though."
"I just don't like leaving questions unanswered."

We went back inside, and I could feel the crowd's eyes poking me.
I sat down at my chair and took a sip of my juice box.

My computer was broken. I attempted to fix the device while I was watching the other players fight each other.

After half an hour or so, all players were taken out, and they started over.
All went well, I felt all the worries leave my body.
I felt better, looking at the ponies slaughtering each other in a virtual world.

I moved the last key in place and was content with the look of it.
My laptop looked like it had never even been crushed at all.
I plugged in the loader and pressed the on button.
Then, every computer, every light went dark. Oops.

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