Life is a Game

by Cirrus Dash

Skills and Friends

After an hour of class starting, Button remembered in startling clarity exactly why he brought his handheld games to class daily and focused on those instead of the lesson. It. Was. Fucking. Boring!

Seriously, the only reason why he liked it was because of Miss Cheerilee who went out of her way to involve every student equally. But everything sucked more than a leech

He sighed again and closed his eyes as he breathed deeply and exhaled silently. He then reached into his bag and grabbed the textbooks they had purchased at the beginning of the year. He set it down on his desk and opened it. His eyes widened a bit as the words glowed and slowly floated off the page and moved as it if they were waves, before they rushed to his head. He winced as if they would hurt him. But they simply faded against his skin, and knowledge filled his mind.

He blinked in surprise before looking down at the book. He read what was on the page - as the ink still rested against their ultra thin wooden pages - and found that he could recite each page word or word. The corner of his lip twitched as a window popped in front of his eyes.

Due to you finding a new feature about The Game, you have gained the following:
5 points in each Stat!
Skill: Fast Learning!
Skill: Speed Reading!

'This is gonna be the easiest year of my life' Button thought as he 'paid attention' to the lesson.

~~

His excitement had lasted only for about an hour and a half, two tops. By the time lunch came around, Button was struggling to stay awake. The Gamer, who didn't need to sleep at all, was having trouble staying awake.

He grumbled a bit as he walked into the cafeteria, going into the lunch line. He grabbed what he wanted for lunch, just enough to stave off suspicion, as well as for taste.

He looked around the room for an empty TV and saw no empty tables. He sighed softly and walked to a table where he saw Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. His thought proccess as to why he did this particular action is that, if he could befriend them now, he might be able to convince them to lower the amount of bullying they do. But once he stepped close enough, they stood up with their lunches and marched away with their noses in the air. He rolled his eyes and muttered some choice words under his breath before sitting at the now empty table.

He ate slowly and savored the flavor of the food, debating internally on whether or not he should bring his own meals or not. His thought process was broken when the sound of trays being set on his table entered his ears. He looked up from his pizza and saw two ponies sit down, both colts.

One was slightly rounder in shape, and had a big smile on as he dug into his food. He had a long blond mane that was styled with what was either gel or grease, while his tail was blond as well, but unstyled. Or both. His coat was very light brown, and his eyes were covered by a set of black sunglasses that had gold rims. He wore a white dress shirt underneath a black jacket, with light grey patches on the elbows. His pants were a dark blue denim, and his shoes were black sneakers.

The other was thinner with a white coat and a short brown mane and tail. His coat had large brown spots on it, such as around his right eye, on his shoulder, and left arm. He wore a short sleeved white T-shirt and black jeans, while his shoes were a pair of dark blue Nikes that had seen better days.

Using Observe told him that they were Zeke Dunbar and Pipsqueak respectively. But he decided to be polite and went to ask who they were, but Zeke went ahead and did it for him.

"Oh! Sorry about that! Name's Zeke, and this is Pipsqueak. I saw that you were eatin' alone, and thought you might be a bit lonely. So I convinced Pip to come with me to eat lunch with you" he said with a smile, while Pipsqueak waved shyly.

Button smiled and spoke. "I thank you, then. Button Mash. Nice to meet you" he said with a smile. After that they ate in relative silence, striking up some conversation in order to know more about each other. And like that, Button got some new friends.

Author's Note:

To the ones who suggested the cities and powers, thank you! Looks like the city is Manehatten! However, the power is still up to debate, as people suggested his power to be an inventory or something.

Let me clarrify a couple things - and I hope I'm not rude about this - a Conduit's power is one, able to be used as a weapon, and two, absorbed. Like Cole MacGrath, with his electricity, or Delsin with any of his powers. So inventory is off the list. Please come up with more!

Comments

[MidnightBlossom]

nice cool chapter

[Cauchemar]

Powers and weapon? There's a ability from a anime that's stupidly versatile and technically one weak sounding power.

Try looking up the 4th Wave power from the anime NEEDLESS

[Midnight Moon]

Straight from Infamous: Second Son, Video Manupulation sounds like it would be a good one for Button Mash. Add in a few alterations to more accurately reflect his status as The Gamer and as a video gamer, and it would be perfect.

[Silver_Fang15]

I'll just say it: magnetism. It's quite versatile in my opinion, so it would definitely be a nice idea. In order to feed the power, he wouldn't need to do much, as planet had its own magnetuc camp. To nerf it a bit, we can make it that he passively absorbs magnetism over a long time, say several hours to recharge.

But that's just an idea that I thought up in two minutes. You can improve on it, if you like it, or just disregard it. I won't mind.

[Chrome Masquerade]

Using Observe told him that they were Zeke Dunbar and Pipsqueak respectively. But he decided to be polite and went to ask who they were, but Zeke went ahead and did it for him.

One of these things is not like the others.

Notice: the following punchlines could technically apply.
Button Mash: lacks a K or E.
Pipsqueak: only one word.
Several others would apply and be just as funny.

Also, this could be played straight and suggest that a pony named something not pony-like (such as Zeke) and/or after a video game character in a story about The Gamer might be immediately suspicious.

I was kind of implying the latter, but no one asked you.