.hack//EQUESTRIA

by NovaSethyr

Monsters

“OK, so basically, a guild is a buncha guys just doing what they want? Then why doesn’t everypony just do that?” I asked, my mind finally snapping out of the daze it found itself in after being ambushed by three random pones. Who could think straight in such a situation anyways?

Refinity opened her mouth and looked like she was trying to find the right words to explain it. “Well, you’re right in a sense. Ponies get together in a guild more often than you would think. What happens is that guilds don’t usually go well between the ponies and they disband, or they get absorbed into a bigger guild if the smaller guild isn't doing as well as they hoped. If the guild has a higher rank, it has more bonuses to grant the members of the guild - there's always more incentive to join bigger guilds than make your own.”

I nodded in understanding. “So eventually everypony joins with one of the bigger guilds and stuff, but then why are you three forming a guild? Wouldn’t you just go and join the other guilds?”

Crimson looked behind her from the lead at us. “I don’t want anything to do with those lunatics! I’d rather work with other people instead of competing against others!”

“Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but it is also incentive to progress.” Berry walked up to my right with a sly smile on her face and in her robin egg eyes. “Oh, my little silly pony; without competition, there would be no improvement to anything.” Berry slinked away gracefully before joining with Crimson up front. I had a good view of her flank from here, and I examined the strange tattoos that stuck out of Berry's red coat along her sides and hind legs.

“Yeah, what she said.” said Refinity. “Well, we’re here! Our @Home!” Refinity indicated to the large building in front of us, with a spinning disc in mid air. The disc had a large blue screen in it, and it was big. It was about triple my height, but it wasn’t very wide. As I stared at the technological wonder, I didn’t notice when Crimson held a card out under my muzzle. Not getting a response, she promptly decided that the best course of action was to slap my cheek with it.

“OW!” I turned to Crimson with an incredulous look on my face and took the card. It had a picture of a little pig-like creature. It had a snout, and eyes that glittered with intelligence. It actually looked astonishingly enough like… Berry?

“Berry, why are you a pig?” I asked innocently.

“That’s not me, that’s a Grunty. She’s actually our Guild’s Grunty, so she manages the bank and the members and whatnot.”

“Man, I’m starting to wish I did read the instructions.” Crimson let out another gigglesnort in response.

“You can take a look inside Epitaph’s new @Home or wait here for us to finish up our preparations to go into the field. Your choice.” Refinity said as she walked to the spinning glowing disc thingy. How this was supposed to house our guild - Epitaph, was it?- was beyond me. Refinity stepped up to the disc and held up her card to the large blue screen, causing lines of text to scroll across it. A blue aura enclosed the card and its holder as she teleported to some other place.

I froze, and then ran circles around the disc thing. “Wait, what? When could she teleport?! Where’d she go?! Why are you all LAUGHING?!” I yelled as I started freaking out. I was a total newbie, what could I say? Crimson had fallen over on the ground laughing, and even Berry was stifling a few giggles before uproariously guffawing at my antics. “I’m missing something here, aren’t I?”

“Hehehehe, sorry, hehe, but newbies like you are rare these days. Practically everypony is playing this game, so seeing somepony who doesn’t even know what a Chaos Gate is-pfffffheheheheeeee!” Crimson said before she succumbed to another giggle fit sprinkled with snorts.

“It’s alright, Faylin.” Berry said as she composed herself. “Everypony was new at one point, so don’t worry if you don’t understand something. Refinity used her Guild Key to go to our @Home. You try it, see if you can use it like she did.” She motioned with her hoof for me to step up to the floating disc thing. Chaos Gate, Crimson said. I trotted up a bit hesitantly, wondering what teleportation feels like. I mean, being a unicorn and all, I could theoretically teleport, but it’s just a liiiiittle out of my grasp within the realm of magic-casting.

So I was caught completely off guard when I raised the card and waited for some sort of pain, maybe nausea or dizziness, and was met with no difference in my bodily functions. I opened my eyes, and I immediately realized I was scared enough to close my eyes in the first place without my knowledge. My body is more careful with itself than I am, apparently. I looked about the hall, and was once again astonished by the detail put into a game.

I looked into a large room with two staircases on each side leading up to a second floor of the same room. There were a few doors here and there, and I wondered just how big this @Home was. There was a lush red carpet in between the staircases, but standing on a pedestal was the pig thing that was on the card!

In a very high pitched voice, it talked to me. “What’re ya lookin’ at, punk?”

It talked.

It can talk.

WHY can a pig talk? WHY was it talking to ME?! I sat on my haunches again as I just stared at the pig, which seemed to infuriate her - as it was a definite high pitched female voice - further. “What, you ain’t never seen a Grunty before? I outta smack you square in the jaw, you noob.”

“Lil’Berry, stop it. He hasn’t seen one before, so just let your presence be known to him and let’s get on with this,” Refinity said from the second floor, looking down upon us with a small smile on her lips.

Lil’Berry smiled a bit more wickedly than I would like. “So he IS a newbie? Well well well, I think I’m going to have a little fun with you, kid. Welcome to the @Home of the newly founded guild, Epitaph.” I never knew a pig could look so manically evil before now, and I might have a phobia of farm animals from now on. I turned my attention to Refinity, and the Grunty started talking to itself with that creepy smile, hopefully not trying to plot my imminent death.

“So what’s the purpose of this place? Just a place to hang out, or does stuff usually happen here?”

Refinity gave another small smile. “Well, yes, this place is usually used for the members to get together and plan for what they’re going to do. There is also a small shop over there” she pointed with a hoof to the door to the left side on the upper floor, “that the Grunty manages. The inventory and money is synonymous with the Guild Shop that Berry runs, except that this shop here lets the members get a discount and there are a few items that can’t be bought anywhere else.

“Over there we have the Warehouse,” she said as she pointed to a door just to my left, “there we can, well, store items and equipment. The Grunty here has an item called a Ryu Book. In it, we can view all of the accomplishments that the players have performed. How many monsters we killed, how many dungeons we cleared, Player vs. Player battles, total play time for each member, et certera, et cetera. The better the Ryu Book, the better bonuses we get, like a bigger Warehouse, or more items can be put in stock at the Shop.”

I shook my head, trying to retain the information dump that was poured on me. “So…this is the shop Berry runs…with benefits to members? And everything is recorded in that Ryu Book? Which then gives us bonuses for each and every member? Wow, guilds are pretty awesome, in that aspect.”

“BAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

That sudden, instant scream right next to me made me jump out of my skin. Not literally… but that would just ruin my whole day. Not like it wasn’t bad already considering the pony who keeps pranking me like this. After I recovered for what seemed like the tenth time today, I spun to face Crimson and smacked her upside the head. She stopped giggling like a schoolgirl, but still had a smile plastered all over her stupid, grinning, idiotic face. “Worth it,” she said. I prepared a rather lengthy speech that would involve her and her mother before Refinity interrupted.

“Alright you two, stop foaling around. I think it’s time to break our newbie in to battle, don’t you agree?” Refinity to the rescue, much to my speech’s chagrin. I can always store it for later use. Luna knows there’ll be more instances for it’s use.

Crimson was practically giddy with excitement. “I thought we’d NEVER get back to the fighting! Come on, where are we gonna go next? A desert? A forest? A plains? Oh oh oh, maybe a castle?!”

“Settle down, tiger. We’re going to one of the lower level stages first, our new friend here can’t handle himself when fighting monsters at our level. OK, granted, our level isn’t very high either, but it’s higher than his. Let him decide the keywords and we’ll see what happens.” Refinity cantered down the steps as she calmed down Crimson. She turned to me with a glaring look in her eyes. “Do you at least know how to use your class?”

“I stand back, avoid getting hit, and sling spells left and right. I’ve played RPGs before, ma’am.” I grinned widely. I wasn’t a total noob.

“Alright, but you have to keep our health up as well. We don’t want another Goblin King fiasco on our hands, do we Crimson?”

Crimson held true to her name, as her face turned an even brighter red and she lowered her head in shame. “I just wanted to give it a hug.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Berry returned to her shop after Crimson went into the @Home, she didn’t want to leave it unoccupied for too long and sped off into the night... or afternoon, as it t'were. We returned to the staircase where I was first ambushed by the Epitaph guild. What I didn’t notice before was there was another Chaos Gate here, and instead of having one disc spinning lazily around, this one had three. Three discs spinning in different directions, it was rather hypnotizing. I shook myself before I got too entranced by it’s hypnotic... hypnotism.

“Alright, Faylin, you’re up. Pick out three keywords to choose our fight!” Crimson lowered herself, as if to leap out at the Chaos Gate. Refinity trotted up beside her and put a hoof before I could trot to the Chaos Gate.

“Before you choose the words, I’d like to explain them to you so we don’t accidentally end up with monster five times our level.” I grimaced at the thought and motioned for her to continue. “There are three keywords, as you know. Each keywords has power over what type of dungeon or field you can get. The first keyword is the level of the area in multiples of tens; 01, 11, 21, and so on. It can also determine what type of map it is, whether a cave, field, or dungeon. The second keyword can add the area’s level to match yours. So if your first keyword is a level 11, you can use the second keyword to make it a level 17 area. It also determines what kind of mission you are on in the map, from kill the boss to collect X amount of items. And the third keyword can add or subtract a few levels to the area level, but it can also increase or decrease the item levels you’ll find on the map. You got all of that?”

I nodded hesitantly and cantered up to the discs and reached out a hoof. A screen popped out near my outstretched hoof, much to my surprise. I saw three columns, with words that I could change with a flick of my hoof. After thinking about what Refinity told me I picked out what I hoped would be a suitable starting spot. I waved the other two over to look at my selection.

“Delta Buzzing Swift Pure Bred? Alright, not bad. I think you can handle yourself here. I don’t have to worry about saving your sorry flank from a few goblins, do I?” Crimson snickered and I glowered. This was going to become a ‘thing’ between us, wasn’t it? I wasn’t here for more than an hour and already ‘things’ were being made.

“Looks like you can handle picking words. I don’t have to worry about you growing bored if we’re not around then. Let’s get you on your first adventure!”

After a teleporting experience akin to when entering the @Home, we arrived in the most luscious and serene place I’ve ever seen. All around me, there were rolling green hills, vibrant mountains in the distance, sparkling water that looked fresher than any tap water I‘ve seen. There were birds chirping, and I could see insects of all kinds buzzing merrily along the field in search of flowers. I was, in short, in paradise.

That is, of course, if there weren’t goblins roaming the area.

The goblins were rather passive looking, and just barely enough muscle on them to hold their rusty swords. “Are those our enemies? This’ll be more like a slaughter than a battle!” I could hear Crimson squeal with delight just behind me, but I didn’t care. I was admiring the scenery so much, and the antics of an insane Axemare were the least of my worries at the moment. It was so beautiful, I couldn’t just see it. I needed to recreate it. I wasn't much of an artist, but this scenery inspired me to buy a sketchbook right then and there.

The feeling was ruined when I got a light poke from my back. I turned expecting to slap Crimson again, but I saw that Refinity was there with her hoof prodding my back. That gentle, warm smile matched perfectly with the scenery, but there was an urgency in her eyes that clashed with the warmness. “It’s beautiful, I know. We need to keep moving, though. We didn’t come for the scenery.” With that she turned and cantered off, but not before turning her head back. “But, you could always come here at any other time to admire the landscape, you know.”

I wasn’t sure if she was inviting me to admire the scene with her, or just saying what I could do to unwind. Luna knows this is a magnificent place to relax and just enjoy life. I took one last longing gaze at the beauty before me before turning to face the goblins.

The map was arranged like a giant island, you can explore everywhere you like but can’t touch the water that surrounds it. There are narrow pathways for ponies to travel between islands, and each patch of land had about a group of three to four goblins around on them. We walked up to the first batch of goblins and they looked back at us. We had a stare off, we looked menacingly at them while they tried to appear threatening but came off as pathetic to us. Then we charged.

Well, more accurately Crimson charged in screaming bloody murder while I slammed my hoof into my forehead. Refinity just sort of sighed, having already gotten used to such antics. Before she followed her compatriot, she pulled out the very dangerous looking sword that was attached to her back. Now that I got a good look at it, it looked wicked. It had a curve with a small spike jutting out from the apex of the inside curve. Pointing toward the wielder. If she stabbed somepony with it and tried to pull it out, they would tear out most of their flesh and probably cause massive internal bleeding. Luckily, this kind of sword meant it wasn’t for stabbing. Often. The curve allowed it to slice very well, as she did so to one of the goblins who went down easily.

And then I examined Crimson's weapon slicing and hacking through goblins.

Crimson’s huge axe didn’t catch my attention at first, but now that I take a look at it I was scared of this pony. Scared. Of my own teammate. That’s how scary she looked. The blade of the axe was long, it was sharp, and it was blood-red. I imagine that it wasn’t originally colored like that. It had a huge spike on the other side, which could crush someone like me without any sort of force involved except gravity. Crimson had a grin on her face that didn’t just pass into insanity, it built a home and lived in the farthest corners of what could barely be called sanity. She turned to face me with those wide eyes, and that horrible, frightening grin, holding her gigantic axe in just one hoof.

“I take it you haven’t seen somepony in a blood craze before, have ya?”

This insane pony… was in a… a blood craze? I hoped that meant she didn’t lose all sense of reason and just looked like she was going to tear me limb from limb because I had bored her. “N-no, I haven’t fallen into the depths of insanity, if that is what you’re implying.”

Refinity gave a small chuckle before patting me gently on the back, soothing me from my fearful state. “She didn’t go insane, Faylin. She just looks like that to scare her opponents. Usually works too, unless she herself is scared witless from our opponent. Which can happen a lot if you choose the right keywords.”

Crimson gave a gasp as she charged Refinity and shut her mouth with her hooves. “Don’t. You. Dare.” warned Crimson and Refinity gave a large grin, looked to the side and said innocently, “I have no idea what your talking about, Crimson.” She turned and gave a very small chuckle before walking to the next group of goblins, waiting for us. “Oh, and Faylin,” she called back, “you may actually want to fight at some point. We won’t carry you all the way, you know.”

Crimson and I trotted up on either side of her flank. “Hey, Refinity, I think we should sit back and let him do this fight, yeah?”

Refinity again smiled at me warmly. “Yes, that is a fine idea. I think we should let him test out his skills at the game, after all. All he’s done in the past couple of hours is talk and walk.” I blushed hotly at the statement, and while it was true, I was eager to prove myself to these two… friends? Do I consider them my friends now, or just members of the same group?

I shook away my thoughts and pulled out my staff with a hoof. That was another thing about this game, the ability to hold things with hooves. No more holding things in ponies mouths. I looked at my staff; it was a simple oak staff with runes etched into the wood, the blue aura of my magic held it firmly in place. When I planted it on firmly on the ground, the runes glowed bright orange with a hiss before going out again. It was taller than me, just reaching over my head, but it was usable.

I went over my spells again for the hundredth time today. Wavemaster start off with three spells of their choosing. I chose the Fire spell, Vak Don, your basic fireball spell, the Healing spell, Repth, and the Earth spell, Gan Don, which drops a small boulder on an enemies head. I steeled myself, ready to take on this new challenge.

I looked into the enemies’ eyes. There were three of them and one of me. I was sure I could take these goblins... alone. One spell could probably kill them, but you couldn’t be any more careful. I stepped forward and they took that as the incentive to charge. It was the beginning of a battle. I’ve never been in a fight before. What do I do? How do I defend myself? Oh, no, what were those spells again? Crap, here they come!

One raised their sword in an effort to hit me with it, but I saw it coming and I dodged out of the way, coming up on the goblin’s side. The other two were still running at me, and I had to act fast before they all attacked at once. They might be slower, but it’s an awful lot harder to dodge three swords at the same time.

I raised my staff in an act of swift defense, and quickly chanted the first spell that came to mind. Unfortunately my mind was racing at a hundred miles per hour, and I couldn’t think straight. The spell came out as a bunch of ramblings. The staff caught a blow that would’ve hit me had I not raised it, and I hope it didn’t damage any of the runes. In the midst of the battle, a single spell came to me, crystal clear. “VAK DON!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. The goblin whose sword was caught by my staff quickly erupted in flames, and begin to scream in agony.

As the goblin tried to put itself out, I turned to the other goblin who was running up at me, and the second spell came to mind. Instead of shouting unnecessarily loud this time, I said in a quiet voice, “Gan Don.” A boulder the size of my head slammed down onto the charging goblin, and he was out before he hit the ground. His forward momentum propelled him towards me, and I had to duck to avoid being hit by the flying body.

By an extreme stroke of luck, I also avoided getting my head chopped off by the goblin whom I dodged around. I heard the swish of a sword just missing me, probably giving me a trim on my blue hair, too. The body kept moving forward into the goblin behind me, resulting in a tangle of limbs and swords. The body had apparently impaled itself on the other goblin’s sword, and it took him a second to pull it back out and face me.

That was plenty of time for me to set him on fire and watch as he slowly burned to death. I watched him as the flesh melted away and the screams tore at it’s throat. He was clawing at his very flesh and bone, trying to put out the magical fire. But it was too late, he was already dead. The screaming still echoed in the wind, long after he died. I could still hear it, the pain and agony he went through because of me.

I vaguely noticed that someone was calling my name. I looked up and saw Crimson, smiling widely and skipping with joy up towards me. She was speaking but I couldn’t hear her over the screaming. I wonder why she couldn’t hear it? Maybe she could but just ignored it. Refinity trotted up slowly behind her. The small smile was gone, replaced only with a face of utter concern. She walked up next to Crimson and said something to her. Crimson immediately stopped grinning and tilted her head at me, like I was some sort of puzzle she had to figure out. Refinity said something, but the screaming drowned her out. Suddenly, I felt a hard, metal hoof slap me right across the cheek.

Ow. That REALLY hurt.

I turned and looked at Crimson, who raised a hoof again threateningly as she bellowed, “SNAP OUT OF IT, FAY!”

I winced in pain from both the slap as much as the voice that screeched in my ear. “You don’t have to scream like that, Crimson, I can hear you just fine.”

Relief washed over my companions’ faces. “Oh, Faylin! I thought that you wouldn’t recover from the shock!” I was suddenly aware that a pony had wrapped their hooves around my neck and hugged me tightly. Refinity looked like she was about to cry, while Crimson had a look of pride in her face. Weather she was proud of me or the fact that she slapped me back to reality I would never know.

Alright, guys, I think this calls for a little rest. I’m a bit tired after the fight. And yes, I was a…bit shocked from the experience.”

I laid down on the grass, Refinity still holding me tightly. I looked out of the clear blue lake, the azure sky with clouds lazily drifted past, and I stared across the lake in quiet contemplation, not noticing my eyelids drifting downwards as I laid my head in Refinity's white fur.

Comments

[Festus]

I say, this is a nice story. Let's see if I could guess the characters...

Crimson Axe: Vinyl Scratch (DJ PON-3)
Refinity: Octavia
Berrylicious: Berry Punch

Did I get it right? Oh well, I'm seriously gonna keep track of this. Keep on writing Brony!

[Dublio]

Interesting concept. Looking forward to reading more.

And don't worry about that motivation thing. It happens to every single writer out there.

was kinda confused of the main characters gender when i first read the story. but its all good nows!