May The Best Gamer Win!

by Golden Cake

The Competition

As Samuel and Luna stepped out of their room, so did all the other pairs of competitors.

Everyone then moved in front of a newly formed stage in the center of the stadium, before Aede Bit manifested himself on the stage out of multicolored pixels, with his arms folded, as the warm, gentle, afternoon sunlight bounced off of his shiny, colorful clothes.

Aede raised his two fingers up with his right hand, as two random competitors disappeared and reformed on the stage in a formation of pixels.

In the center of the stage stood two small desks with monitors, placed against each other, both accompanying a strange looking gaming console, with a high quality looking swivel chair in front of each.

There were also two giant screens on the stage, behind the gaming setups, which Samuel assumed was for the rest of the competitors to watch.

Aede then turned his back to the other contestants, before he snapped his fingers, which caused rows and rows of chairs to spawn behind everyone.

Samuel and Luna took this as their queue to take a seat and wait their turn.

As the first pair of contestants, an orange, male pony pegasus, and a creature with the figure of a human, with antlers sprouting from his head and long, draping hair, sat down in their seats on stage, Aede Bit looked to the audience in the large, looming bleachers and smiled.

“Everyone!!” He shouted, quite audibly, even though he didn’t have a microphone.

“It is time! Time to truly find… THE BEST GAMER IN THE MULTIVERSE!!”

The stadium’s bleacher’s were filled with the sounds of clapping, slapping, and the clopping of pony hooves.

“A lot of different forms of applause, I guess,” Samuel thought, as he looked around at the audience.

Samuel then felt a hoof poking his shoulder, as he turned to see that it was Luna, who was looking at him with a hint of fear.

“Samuel,” she started. There’s something you should know about Aede Bit.”

Just then Aede Bit clapped his hands, as there were firework explosions of pixels in the sky, as the two gaming consoles on stage started booting up. Luna, however, continued anyways.

“I… I brought him here,” she said shamefully, as her ears drooped.

Samuel opened his mouth, but Luna put a hoof to it, as she continued.

“I know it was stupid, and I know it was selfish, but I just needed to be recognized somehow.”

Samuel looked at her, confused, before he looked at Aede.

“What exactly is Aede Bit?” He asked. “He looks almost human, but he seems to have some strong magical powers.”

“He does,” Luna said, as she looked at Aede, too. “When I first summoned him, I wanted to have a humble tournament, maybe in an arcade in Ponyville, but Aede Bit wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to have a more ‘professional’ tournament, so he created this stadium and told me to gather the best gamers from across different worlds to compete against each others.”

Luna then turned to face Samuel briefly.

“I originally brought Aede Bit here so I could beat him in a game one on one, but to be honest… I was scared, so I agreed to his preference.”

“Aede Bit isn’t human, Samuel, he’s a physical incarnation of the spirit of competitive video game players in your world, to put it simply.”

Samuel looked at her, surprised, before she looked back at the lush, green, grass floor of the field.

“But… why from my world?” Samuel asked.

Luna looked at Samuel, before she looked at Aede Bit.

“I… used a spell to manifest raw emotions into physical beings. It isn’t easy to do with weaker emotions, and the worldwide spirits of gamers in most world’s wasn’t strong enough to form a whole person and an entire body from.”

“Your world was an exception, though. Your world has a more potent gaming spirit than any other I’ve seen as of yet, so I used samples of your world’s emotional gaming spirit to form a new being from. A being I could prove myself and my skills with, once I’d beaten him.”

Aede Bit then floated into the air, doing backflips, as more fireworks shot out of his hands, as he laughed.

“But it’s gotten out of hoof,” Luna said slowly. “And I fear that if Aede Bit had the chance, he would gladly put our fellow contestants welfare in jeopardy, for the sake of a good show.”

Samuel looked at Luna. He felt like he was talking to a dictionary, based on her expanded vocabulary compared to him, before he brushed his thoughts to the side, and decided to just watch the show.

When Aede Bit was done with his little display of excitement, the games booted up, and Aede Bit manifested himself onto a floating throne in the front row of the stage.

---

When the game started, it was SunSwords and RainBows, a game disguised as a basic, childish PvP, but really had some pretty addictive gameplay and great weapon selection.

As the two contestants played through the game, it looked like they were fighting with all their might, and were even using some dirty tactics, like animation locks, where your enemy locks you in an animation when they hit you when you’re in the air, and you can’t control your player when you’re in the animation, and they hit you repeatedly to ‘lock’ you in that animation, and keep you immobilized.

It used to be a terrible thing in Super Smash Bros, truly terrible.

When the game finally ended, the human looking creature with antlers looked relieved, as he’d won, as the orange pegasus’s ears folded, as he lost.

The orange pegasus looked at Aede Bit fearfully, as Aede Bit tapped his fingers on his armrest.

Aede Bit then floated in the air and clapped his hands, as the two contestants disappeared from the stage and reappeared in two more seats in front of the stage, next to all the other contestants.

A billboard then appeared out of thin air next to Aede, which showed all the contestants, and he crossed out the name ‘Sunflower Syrup’ and circled the name ‘Ceciano’.

The billboard hovered in the air next to Aede for the rest of the competition, as Aede was marking who would advance to fight others and who had lost.

It didn’t take long until Samuel and Luna started playing against other contestants.

They didn’t go against each other as they moved up the ranks, or… at least until they both soon enough found themselves at the top of the leaderboard.

When Aede Bit crossed out everyone else’s names, and circled Luna and Samuel’s names in red, he clapped his hands and teleported them on the stage, as he smiled excitedly.

Samuel could feel his legs turn to jelly as he looked around at the bleachers.

He’d never been in the view of such a large audience before.

Luna looked at him for a moment, concerned, as she raised a hoof to him, before she stopped herself, and gritted her teeth, and looked at Aede Bit, who was rubbing his hands together.

“Well, well!! Princess Luna! Equestria’s ‘Princess of The Night’ and ‘Greatest Gamer’!!” Aede said cheerfully, as Luna looked at him with a mix of irritation and fear. “This should be fun…”

He then looked at Samuel, as the excitement in his eyes faded somewhat.

“And… a uh… a human!” Aede said with a forced smile. “It was Sammy, right?”

Samuel opened his mouth to correct him, before he was cut off.

“Yeah, of course it was. I remember now,” Aede Bit said, before he pointed at Samuel and Luna with both hands and magically levitated both of them to their seats.

“Let’s get this final game going!!” Aede said excitedly.

When Samuel and Luna adjusted themselves in their comfy chairs, they found out the game they would be playing was Zombie Hunter 3.

Samuel and Luna done a pretty bad job of hiding their confusion, because Aede bit spoke again a moment later.

“You look surprised,” Aede Bit said. “I only select the games that I know both selected players are familiar with. I’m not a monster!”

Samuel didn’t want to think about how he Aede could have even known that, as he looked to the side of his monitor, at Luna.

Luna popped her neck and was cracking her… hooves? to prepare for what her and Samuel both knew was going to be one hell of a fight.

“Good luck, Mom!!” Aede Bit said enthusiastically.

Samuel visibly cringed when he said that to Luna, but did his best to hide the display from Aede Bit.

---

Once Samuel and Luna selected their character perks and load outs, the game started, and the chaotic, heart pounding fight began.

Their players were two humans fighting in an industrial park, during a thunderstorm, which would only add to the tension of the battle.

Samuel took the first hit from Luna’s character, who wielded a battle axe, but he had a fast counter, as his character swung around on a nearby rod that was poking out of the slick, concrete ground, and got a quick slash on Luna’s leg with his blade.

Despite the name, Zombie Hunter 3 was mostly renowned for its smooth, engaging player vs player combat. Zombies were more of a background part of the game.

As Samuel continued fighting Luna, he couldn’t help but think about what he should do.

He could lose intentionally, and let Luna win the competition, and the respect from her subjects. Or Samuel could try his hardest and possibly win the competition, tearing the victory and respect away from Luna, and returning to Earth with his long awaited, truly deserved prize.

Samuel had bonded with Luna as they practiced, and felt that she was the first person who he could really relate to on a deep level.

He couldn’t do it. But Aede Bit had a close eye on any and all of the games, so he would know if someone was intentionally playing worse.

Samuel would need to be careful about this. He needed to play hard, and play to win, but try to assist Luna in smaller, more inconspicuous ways.

Samuel was knocked from his thoughts as his player was literally knocked to the ground with a mega kick that Luna had as one of her perks.

Samuel’s character then quickly jumped to his feet, and was dodging back repeatedly as Luna was in hot pursuit, and he was blocking her swings, one after the other. Samuel didn’t even have a single opportunity to fight back.

Luna was unrelenting in her attacks, and Samuel was running out of options, before he fell back into a pretty deep pit, losing a good quarter of his HP as he hit the ground.

Fall damage was always more unforgiving in Zombie Hunter 3 compared to other games.

As Samuel’s thoughts raced, he could only think of how to beat Luna for the first round.

The best thought Samuel had was using animation locks, which were definitely a thing with ZH 3, though it was frowned upon by the gaming community.

Samuel decided against such dirty tactics and instead used his super jump perk to jump out of the ditch, as he took Luna by surprise, and stabbed her character through the chest, as she was in the middle of jumping down the ditch to slam him with her axe.

Samuel’s sword took about 35% of Luna’s HP, since it was a critical hit through the chest.

As Samuel landed and slid on the concrete, he looked back at Luna, who landed in front of him, and pulled out her rocket launcher.

“Oh god.”

Samuel was going out of his way to play fair, but it seemed that Luna was playing to win, in any way.

As Luna’s character shot the rocket at Samuel’s character, Samuel blocked with his sword, but the blast still took a good chunk of his health, and he lost the rest of his health when the blast had knocked him directly into a patch of spikes that were set up on the wall behind him.

The first round was over, the leaderboards updated, and Luna only had to win two more rounds to win the whole tournament.

Samuel and Luna changed their perks and weapon setup before the next game started.

When the next game started, they were still in the industrial park, except it wasn’t raining, and it was later in the day, with a beautiful, almost comforting, crisp orange sunset.

This time, it was Samuel who got the first hit on Luna, with his heavy sledgehammer, as she seemed a bit slower than she was last game. It was a critical hit, too, and knocked her on her back.

Samuel then looked past Luna’s character and saw a patch of spikes that were poking out of a pile of debris behind her.

“I’ve got to give her a chance to use those,” he thought. “She needs to win.”

Samuel then got closer to Luna, and blocked her attacks with her katana, as he slowly maneuvered himself to face away from the spikes.

Luna’s character froze for but a second, as if she knew what he was doing, before she used her lasso perk to grab Samuel’s character and throw him over her, away from the spikes.

He only took a small amount of damage as he hit the ground, and looked back at Luna.

Luna then rushed to Samuel, and tried using her mega kick attack again. Despite how strong it is, if you have a heavy weapon(like a sledgehammer), it’s really easy to counter, and make the other player suffer the consequences, if it’s used incorrectly.

Samuel then used his sledgehammer and slammed Luna’s character in the leg, taking a portion of her HP.

“Oh no,” he thought. “Is… is she trying to let me win? She never made such foolish moves like that when we were practicing…”

Then, as Samuel’s character stepped closer to Luna, the game stopped on the pause menu, and Samuel and Luna looked at each other, then at Aede, who seemed unamused, with his hand covering his face.

“Just what are you two doing?” He asked, with a bit of aggression, as he floated off of his throne. “I can sense that you two are holding yourselves back.”

Samuel scratched his neck awkwardly, and Luna fidgeted with her hooves, before Aede spoke again.

“Are you two trying to lose?”

Aede then looked at the two of them, with his hands on his hips, before he smirked.

“You two really want the other to win this, huh?” He asked. “That’s cute.”

Samuel and Luna looked away, before Aede shut his eyes and pointed his fingers at the two of them, which caused the desks, monitors, and chairs to disappear, as Samuel and Luna fell to the floor and looked at him, confused.

Aede then opened his eyes, revealing two multicolored, pixelized iris’s, as he smiled maliciously.

“Then how about I give you two some… incentive,” he said ominously, as his hands glowed brightly with a pixelized energy, and his hair and cape flowed furiously in a non-existent breeze.

He then blasted Samuel and Luna with each of his hands, which caused them both to slowly turn into small pixels, as they both looked at each other, horrified, before they were fully pixelized, and flew into a newly formed, singular monitor on the stage, with Aede Bit turning into a mass of small pixels as well, and flying into the monitor with them.

---

When Samuel and Luna came to, they realized that they were inside the game of Zombie Hunter 3, with the same industrial park and warm sunset as before, and they were wearing their previously selected character’s outfits, as they looked at each other with wide eyes.

Aede Bit manifested himself out of pixels in the air next to them, as he formed a throne behind him out of some debris around him and took a seat, as he looked at Samuel and Luna intimidatingly.

“Now, as I said before, LET THE GAME BEGIN!!”

Author's Note:

I really expected this to be the last chapter, but really, the next one will be the last, I promise!!
I seriously didn’t expect to keep this story going for this long, but it just feels right, yknow?

Anyways, I hope y’all enjoyed this second chapter, and stay tuned for the finale!!