Re-Equestria Online

by MrShmoodlePuffs

And So It Begins

I am awake again. It’s not that type of feeling you get in the morning when you’re feeling all groggy and are finally ready to wake up and get out of bed. I’m just awake. It’s like an internal timer inside me went off and I awake. I don’t feel like I just had a great sleep, nor do I feel tired or yearn for more sleep. It’s a strange feeling, I’ll give you that.

I get out of bed, my mane already neat and tidy. I could never get used to this, and I hope I don’t have to. I look out the window to see that the sun is quarter way across the sky, so it should be around nine o’ clock.

A text box appears. “Would you like to switch your wake-up call?” I read. “Yes.” I respond. The text disappears and 9:00 appears instead, with arrows on top and at the bottom of each number. I change it to 6:00, seeing it fit since I won’t feel sleepy anyways. I wonder what would happen if I didn’t sleep?

I walk out of my room and knock on Pinkie Pie’s door. “Hey Pinkie, are you ready to head out?” I ask loudly, guessing that the automatically configured wake-up is mutual.

“Ya, I’m coming Twilight.” She shouts through the door and the sound of her hooves against the floor become louder as she walks over to the door. She opens it with a bright smile on her face and I could see she had a plan in mind for the day.

We walk down the stairs and Pinkie flashes the stallion behind the desk a bright smile. Surprised, the stallion cautiously smiles back.

Walking with a purpose, Pinkie Pie sets a brisk pace and we walk past the Town Hall. A few more ponies were up and about walking around, but there wasn’t as much as before the horrid scene with Nightmare Moon, and the atmosphere wasn’t as happy. It’s a lot more grim and serious, if not a bit sad with a hint of fear. I’m guessing the very fearful ponies are hiding inside their rooms.

We finally arrive at a strange store with a feeling similar to the one that was selling weapons. We enter to find much clothing. Everywhere. It wasn’t the fancy type that Rarity makes, but it wasn’t casual either. It was strange, thick and heavily padded.

“What are we doing here?” I ask Pinkie. She turns to me and her gaze turns serious for a few seconds.

“Well, if we’re going to be doing this without the Elements of Magic, we obviously need some defense, other than those weapons. This clothing is called “Armour”. It’s supposed to protect you."

I walk over to one of these “Armours” and focus on it, calling up its description. “+4 defense”. I’m not sure if that’s a lot or not. Its title is “Low Quality Leather Armour”. I’m guessing it’s not the best if it has ‘Low Quality’ in its name. I walk over to a different armour, this one seems better put together and made with a better material. Maybe Rarity’s lectures did pay off. “+8 defense”. It’s twice as good as the other one, anyways. “Average Quality Beginner Armour” was its name. The “Buffs” section is a bit more interesting though:

If you are currently at Beginner stage (Level 1-15), then the following effects will take place when wearing this armour:

+7 defense points added to the total defense points of the armour
+2 Speed points
You gain 10 extra XP in an event of which XP is given
+10% damage is dealt when using melee weapons

For so-called ‘average quality’, this piece of armour is very appealing. The price is 45 bits. Of course armour is more expensive than weapons, for armour is larger, and this specific piece has buffs. I think this is a fair price.

“Hey, Pinkie, is this piece a good choice? You seem to have read a bit about this already, and I’m not sure how great I would be at deciding what type of armour to get." Pinkie Pie walks over and gives the armour a good look over, along with its description.

“Don’t worry, this is right. Go ahead and buy it. It a great thing you didn’t decide to buy one of those bulky ones, those give you -3 Speed Points, and they seem to be very uncomfortable. I myself chose a piece of armor I think is suitable. Nothing heavy mind you, or else I wouldn’t be able to skip around!” She says with a mocking stern voice.

I laugh at her joke and buy the piece of armour. It felt good to laugh again, especially in this dark world. “Okay, now that we have what we wanted from here let’s get going. Oh, by the way, I got a message this morning from that Grey Quintus, and he said the next meeting was going to be in two days, that is, after tomorrow. You got it too, just so you know. You probably just didn’t check it out yet, or you didn’t turn on your message alarm. I always have mine on! So we have plenty of time to see what this game is made of.” She informs me, bouncing up and down.

We leave the shop and Pinkie leads us on our way again, Pinkie Pie apparently having another place we have to visit.

We arrive at another shop, this one a bit fancier, velvet covers on the windows. We enter the shop and look around. Many shelves crowd the left wall, packed with rolled-up scrolls, and the right wall had many table set against it. The tables are covered with gems and crystal balls, strange charms and many other items I can’t describe. Then I realize. “This is the magic shop! It’s so different now though, twice as large with ten times as many items!” I exclaim to Pinkie.

“Yep. They renovated this place too.” She says, nodding her head vigorously.

I walk over to the unicorn mare at the marble desk in the middle of the room. “Hi there. What happened to this place?” I ask her.

“Oh, well you see I was working here before the, incident, and when I returned it was, as you can clearly see, twice as large and so many new items are added! I looked at some, and to my horror, many of the new scrolls are filled with battle spells, and most of the new items are also battle-related, ranging from healing charms to weapon and armour enchanting gems! Some of the gems have been made to carry spells, such as invisibility, or you can set the spell to go off at a certain time. There are blank ones too so you can add spells yourself. I was simply horrified at half of what the spells are meant to do!” She tells us dramatically, horror in her eyes. “If you must, you may purchase them. I have no doubt that they will help you, no matter how gruesome I may think they are. If there is a gem that carries a certain spell you would like to learn, don’t hesitate to ask me for the scroll.” She says in a helping manner.

We start looking around. I pick out a few scrolls, some of them for healing, some for enchanting weapons and armour, others for improving skills and attributes, and some random ones like a smoke spell, but I’m guessing most of those had to do with battle. I walk over to the tables and buy some charms and gems that we might find useful, a few timed spell gems, an invisibility charm, and some teleportation gems. I made sure to buy a mapping gem and spell in case we would need it.

“I want to give you some spells and items, can you come over here?” Pinkie Pie calls to me. I walk over to her and I get a message telling me that she was sending me a spark spell scroll, a communication gem, and some other stuff.

We wave to the unicorn mare as we leave the shop. “So, Pinkie, where to now?” I ask her, pretty sure there couldn’t be anything else we needed to buy that’s battle-related.

“Hmm, let’s see… Oh, I know! We need to go eat! How about, the Café?” She suggests.

“Sure, why not? It’s been a long time since I’ve been there, and for some reason, I seem to be hungry. I guess you do need food in this game.” I reply, and we head on the Café.

We arrive at the small establishment, walking up to a pony in behind the counter. “Hello! I’d like a dandelion olive grilled cheese sandwich please!” Pinkie tells them with her usual bounce.

“Yes, and I would like a baguette-styled lettuce and tomato sandwich please, maybe sprinkled with cheese on the inside.” I ask, reminiscing the memories of my previous meals in the real Café.

We eat outside at one of the giant mushroom tables. Eating our exquisite sandwiches, however different they may be, we discuss our plan for the next two days ‘til the meeting.

“So, I’m thinking we put on our gear and head on to the outskirts of the Everfree Forest, around where Fluttershy said she found those parasprites. I think we should get a feel on what type of challenges we’ll be facing in the Everfree Forest.” I tell Pinkie Pie. The Everfree Forest glitching was obviously no accident, Nightmare Moon was probably altering it so we would have to fight something on the way there, kind of like the five challenges we had went through when we first defeated Nightmare Moon.

“Yes, let’s do it. We’ll finish our lunch and get our gear on, and then go explore over there.” She replies, quickly finishing the rest of her sandwich. I roll my eyes, and finish mine too. Might as well get to it.

We walk out of town, currently on the fields just outside of Ponyville, but still on the Ponyville side of the river. We put on our armour and I felt lighter already. I “equip” the sword and hoof-claw things, slipping my dagger into its pocket. I learn a few attack spells, including the spark and lightning spells. We used our charms and gems, somewhat raising our defense and damage.

I had found out what the sword description meant by +20% damage, which meant it adds 20% more damage to the current number of damage I deal(including the damage done by the hoof-claws).

We crossed the bridge and circled around the Everfree Forest until we arrived at our destination. “Do we have our teleport gems in check?” I demand.

“Yep!” Pinkie answers, clad in her lightweight part leather and part steel armour. Her weapon of choice were kind of like my hoof-claws, except instead of tiny blades it was a stony layer, most likely for punching and kicking. She also held a short curved sword in her mouth using a weapon grip.

“Pinkie Pie, do you know how to use those?” I ask her, giving a sceptical look to her hoof-rock things.

“Don’t worry Twilight, I learned about it at the weapon store. It taught me how to use them, and anyways, I have a gem that improves my agility. I’m all right.” She says confidently.

We creep into the forest, scouting around. It wasn’t glitchy anymore, sounding and feeling just like the real Everfree Forest. I silently stopped Pinkie Pie, seeing a pair of bright yellow eyes glaring at us. I take the sword with its weapon grip into my jaws and we walk out, waiting for the creature to show itself.

It jumps out of the darkness, hissing at us. I look closely and realize it’s a timberwolf. The wolf charges at us, and by instinct I jump out of the way, but Pinkie has another idea. She places her hoof between her and the Timberwolf, and before it can realize what she was doing, it crashed into her hoof, exploding into dull black sparkles.

I see a text box appear before her, and she reads it out loud. “You have defeated a Timberwolf. You have gained 15 XP and a twig.”

“Well, at least now we know what happens when we defeat something, and that there are timberwolves in here.” i say positively.

We turn to find multiple glowing yellow eyes staring at us from the darkness. Okay, maybe we shouldn’t have spoken so loudly.

“Oh no. You ready Pinkie?” I ask her.

“Well, Now I have to be. We have no other choice.” She says in a humorous manner, trying to make a joke out of the situation.

The jump out at us, and I hit them with my lightning spell. It fries a few of them, but the rest recover quickly and lunge at us. I swipe in a huge arc at them with my hoof, claws flashing, taking out two more of them, and I jump just out of range as they retaliate, biting at the spot where I stood moments ago. I jump over to Pinkie Pie, slashing at another one of the timberwolves with my sword, and spark three others away.

“I should have learnt a shock or blinding spell.” I tell Pinkie regretfully.

“Ya, that would have helped a lot. A pair of newbies, in the Everfree Forest, fighting against a pack of timberwolves. Not the best situation.” She responds and kicks two timberwolves that were trying to attack from the back with her back legs.

We fight back to back, her thwacking them with her hooves and slashing in arcs with her curved sword, I slicing them with my claws and hacking at them with my sword.

We take out a good number of them, almost half. Then one takes me by surprise and swipes with his paw at my back hoof, causing a howl of pain to escape my mouth and my green bar getting shorter, taking on an orange tinge of green.

“Hey, I think I just figured out that that green bar is the bar representing our health.” I grumble and forcefully kick out at the timberwolf. I quickly turn to Pinkie Pie and see that she has many scratches too, and so we continue fighting. The ‘health bar’ slowly fills back up, but not as fast as it went down.

We fight until there’s only four left, and so we switch our position so we can fight side by side and face-on.

I turn my head as I hear a rustle to our side, and a small group of ponies rush over to us and quickly finish off the rest of the timberwolves.

One of the ponies, now that I recognize to be Cotton Cloud, turns to us. “Are you girls alright?” She asks us worriedly.

“Don’t worry, we’re fine. Why are you ponies here?” Pinkie asks her.

“Well, I could say the same for you. We were out trying to raise our levels and scout a bit to find the best route to the Castle of The Two Sisters. So what are you two doing here?” She demands.

“We came to scout a bit of the Everfree Forest, checking what kind of foes we’re going to be up against, and if the forest was still glitching out.” I respond rather diplomatically.

“Well, we’re just glad you’re safe. We heard the sounds of a scuffle and came as fast as we can. Luckily it’s apparently only a few timberwolves.” She replies with a sigh of relief.

Pinkie giggles. “Oh, you think those were the only timberwolves? We were facing a whole pack of them, and not on purpose, I may add. We bumped into a timberwolf and so we beat him, and moments later we were fighting against a pack of timberwolves.” Pinkie explains to Cotton Cloud.

“Ah, so they do travel in packs. Well, since we saw only four of them timberwolves I’m guessing you dealt with the rest of the pack?” Cotton inquires.

“Yes, and by no means was it fun. I have scratches all over my flank!” I exclaim.

“Yes, I can see that. I suggest we go back to Ponyville and head out again tomorrow. That was enough exploring for today, and I’m guessing you’ll want to modify your gear so you’ll be more prepared for next time.” She comments, and together we head back to Ponyville.

As we reach the bridge Cotton stops and turns to face us. “Okay, so our group is heading out again tomorrow around an hour before noon, will you meet as at this bridge?” She asks us seriously,

“Yes, we will meet you here.” Pinkie responds.

We split as we reach Town Square, Cotton and her group going one way and Pinkie and I heading the other. We reach the hotel and wave to the stallion behind the desk, his eyes widening at our scratches and gear. We walk back up the stairs and into the hallway.

“Hey look, it’s almost evening. you want to come over to my room and we could play a board game?” Pinkie asks me.

“Where and when did you have the time to buy a board game?” I inquire quizzically.

“Oh, you know, a few days ago. It’s snakes and ladders!” She sing-songs the last line.

“Deal!” I say. I love Snakes and Ladders! It was the game of my foal hood!

We enter her room, and she takes out the gameboard, setting it out on the floor.

“Okay, you want to be blue pony, red pony, green pony, or yellow pony?” Pinkie asks me.

“Red pony! I’ve never played as red before.” I say, giddy with excitement.

“Hmm, well then I’m yellow. You go first.” She says, just as excited as I am.

“I rolled a six!”

Author's Note:

I worked hard to make this chapter as long as it is, I had to tell myself "No. You are not putting that off for the next chapter." It was very hard.

I hope you enjoy this one, it does have some action, but not a lot. It's a start though.

Next chapter should keep with this pace, maybe Thursday or Friday.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Why doesn't this story have a dark tag?

[Night_Moon60606]

well, not bad, but also not great. u have a lot of character talking in the same paragraph, i noticed, and u tend to do that a lot...when a new character starts talking, thats a new paragraph.

[CaramelDrop]

So I saw this in the recently updated box and cried. "Oh god, another shitty SAO crossover!"
I read the first chapter...
And this is actually pretty good!
I really enjoyed it, and will be continuing my read any minute now.

[Ink_25]

Yay, new chapter! I guess Twilight will awake before Pinkie does next chapter... or?

[MrShmoodlePuffs]

6692864

Right, I guess I should have thought of that, I wasn't sure if this was a rule in grammar, as I've seen other authors have dialogue together in one paragraph. I'll make the corresponding edits to my chapters

6692475

Oh, well I didn't really think of this as "dark". I'm not planning to have anything extremely sad or disturbing, but if you find this fic "dark" I can add that as a genre. No harm done.

6693053

Aww, thank you! I have checked out some of the other SAO crossovers on this site, but only the descriptions, just to make sure I wasn't copying any other fic. Maybe I'll read the others. I hope you enjoy the story

[MrShmoodlePuffs]

6694459

I dunno. They'll probably coincidentally wake up at the same time Or maybe Pinkie Pie might have chosen an even earlier time to wake up...