Equestria Legends Online

by Shadowflame

May 7th (Off To Cloudsdale!)

I looked up into the sky above me, the clouds blowing through the cross breezes and the sun just barely beginning to rise up behind the horizon. It was early in the morning, and everyone back in Canterlot was still asleep. A cool breeze was blowing through the air. It felt soft and relaxing from where I stood, high on a cliff outside of Canterlot. I was alone, and that gave me the chance to give my wings some air, out from under my cloak that I usually hid them beneath.

Nobody knew that I was an alicorn yet. I hadn't told any of my team members or even my guild members. This was the only way to protect my ability "Apotheosis" from any power-hungry players. So far, it's worked out just fine, and nobody has come after me yet. Nobody suspected anything yet.

I glanced down at the cliff that I stood on top of, the face of it about twenty five feet off of the ground. Even in ELO, falling off of a cliff like this could still hurt a player, even kill them if they were low enough in their level. I however was at level 50, which meant if I fell off the cliff, I wouldn't be hurt that badly. But that's where having wings came in.

I took a few steps back, away from the edge of the cliff. I stopped about five feet away from the edge, just far enough to get a running start. I flared my wings open, and the two appendages seemed to breath a sigh of relief as the wind softly rippled against my feathers. The feeling was good, but not nearly as enjoyable as full flight.

I took a deep breath, "Let's do this."

Instantly, I galloped towards the edge of the cliff and leaped off of it. I let myself free fall from the cliff for only a second, but then I quickly flapped my wings hard and began to soar right above the ground below. I shifted the position of my wings and began to flap them harder, ascending high into the air and into the clouds above.

The wind blew past my wings and my mane at such high speeds, it was almost like riding in a car with the window rolled down. But riding in a car didn't even compare to flying on your own strength, a hundred feet in the air, with nothing that could bring you back down to earth.

"WHO-HOO!" I yelled in jubilation as I curled my wings against my sides, causing me to plummet down towards the ground in a nose dive. I was going so fast that tears began to leak out of the corner of my eyes. But as I reached the ground I unfurled my wings and arced backwards into a loop-de-loop. I then proceeded to continue to pull off several other tricks that I had come up with in the past month, including the Barrel Roll and a corkscrew twist.

Man, I had only had my wings for a little under a month, but I've become a pretty fair flyer. I would compare my skill to that of Rainbow Dash's, but I didn't need to make my ego any bigger.

But then, as I flew near the level of the clouds, I glanced down towards the ground to see a single figure standing in the middle of a grove of trees. I knew him as one of the only players who was a better flyer than me, and he was looking directly at me. It was Lexus, and he waved a hoof towards me as he tried to call me down.

I complied and quickly descended down towards the grove, lighting down just in front of him. I nodded towards him, folding my wings back against my sides, "Hey, Lexus. How was that?"

Lexus had a small grin on his face, "Pretty good. Although, I think the shouting was a bit unnecessary. Anyone could have heard that and come running to see what it was. We *are* trying to keep your wings a secret, right?"

I scratched the back of my head, smiling sheepishly, "Um, yeah. Sorry, I wasn't thinking about that."

Um, remember when I said that nobody knew that I was an alicorn yet? I kind of lied. Lexus was the only one that knew about me being an alicorn. Other than him, no one else knew. The reason why Lexus knew that I was an alicorn was because I needed someone to teach me how to fly. Since I have wings now, why not? And who better to teach me than the best flyer I knew.

I remembered back to when I told Lexus that I was an alicorn.

I walked through the dense forest, along the path that was dimly lit due to the fact that the sun had only begun to rise. It had only been a day since Cordon left The Knights of Harmony. It was early in the morning, right at the time that Lexus would usually wake up for his own daily training session. This forest is where he usually trained, but little did he know that I had been tailing him ever since we left the Team Equitum base.

Soon, I reached a grove in the forest, and in the middle of the grove stood Lexus. My wings suddenly twitched nervously underneath my cloak as they shuffled around uncomfortably at my sides. I sighed, "Well, if I'm going to learn to fly, then Lexus needs to know. Here it goes." I approached the pegasus in the grove.

Lexus heard me approach and quickly whirled around towards me, "Oh, Shadow. What are you doing here? I thought you were still asleep."

I nodded, "Um, yeah. I tailed you here because I needed to ask you something."

Lexus raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Um,... If you were ever needed to teach somebody to fly, would you?"

Lexus gave me a curious glance, "Uh, yeah, I suppose so." He paused for a moment, "This is a rhetorical question, right?"

I shook my head, "No, not really."

"Wait, you want me to teach someone to fly? Who?"

I hesitated for a moment, but then I took off my cloak and spread my wings out. I almost laughed while I watched as Lexus' eyes seemed to bug out of his skull, his jaw dropping to the ground in pure shock.

I let out a small chuckle at the memory. Lexus' face had been priceless. After he had calmed down, he had agreed to teach me how to fly early in the morning in place of his morning training session, and then he swore to keep my secret safe from anybody.

Lexus shrugged, "Well, I guess it's safe to say that you've learned almost everything that I know about flying. I guess we won't be continuing our morning lessons, but that doesn't mean that you can stop practicing."

I nodded, "Right."

Suddenly, a girl's voice shouted throughout the forest, "LEXUS?! Where are you?"

Both mine and Lexus' eyes widened as we recognized who's voice it was, "Uh, oh. It's Neon." Lexus glanced towards me, "Quick, put your cloak back on."

I was already tapping into my inventory, "Already on it." I quickly equipped my cloak and the cloth suddenly appeared on my back, covering up my gray wings at my sides.

Just then, Neon trotted into view, just outside of the grove. Upon seeing us, Neon ran up to me and Lexus, a wide grin on her face, "There you are, Lexus. I was looking for you. I went to your base first, but everyone said that you had left already for your morning training." She suddenly stopped and glanced towards me, "Oh, that reminds me. Shadow, when I stopped by your base, Jupiter was over there looking for you."

I raised an eyebrow, "Oh, I guess I better go see what he wants."

Lexus nodded, "Yeah, you better not keep Jupiter waiting." But then the pegasus turned back to Neon, "Why are you here anyways?"

Neon smiled, "Well, duh. I came to remind you about the date we were planning for tonight, silly. You didn't forget, did you?"

I glanced towards Lexus to see him smile nervously, I think I might have spotted a trickle of sweat on his brow. Lexus replied, nervously chuckling, "Oh, yeah. Of c-course I didn't forget. How could I have forgotten?"

Neon gasped as she saw through his pathetic mask, "You did forget! How could you forget!?"

Lexus only stammered, "Um... Well, uh..."

While Neon continued to chew Lexus out for forgetting about their date, I stood off to the side chuckling, "All right, you two love birds. I'm gonna go see what Jupiter wants. I'll see you later." Neither of them heard me over their bickering, so I just walked out of the forest alone and back towards Canterlot.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The sun was high in the sky when I arrived back to the Team Equitum base and everyone in Canterlot was already beginning their day as usual. I opened the door to the base and walked in.

The first floor of our base was much like our last one in Ponyville: The living area and Kitchen were downstairs, while everyone's rooms were upstairs. From the doorway, I could hear voices coming from the kitchen, one of which I recognized as Jupiter's. So I followed the sound of the voices into the kitchen.

I walked into the room to find that Jupiter was sitting at the table, conversing with Cross who was laughing very hard at whatever they were talking about. I also spotted Cloud at the table as well, all of his bomb crafting equipment sprawled across the tabletop in front of the small dragon. He was tinkering around with what seemed to be a miniature bomb. Of course, I didn't see Sky anywhere, but he was most likely still asleep at this hour, which meant he was still in bed.

Cross noticed me as I entered, "Oh, hey Shadow! How did training with Lexus go this morning?"

The "training" that Cross mentioned didn't include flying. He, as well as everyone else, believed that I joined Lexus when he trained in the morning because I was falling behind in leveling up. I smiled, "It was pretty good. We managed to stay out of too much trouble, you know, since there tend to be more monsters during the night and early morning." I glanced towards Cloud, giving him a cold glance, "And Cloud, I thought I told you: No tinkering with your bombs in the base. Sure the building can't be burned down and nobody can be hurt in a safe zone, but everything else is still flammable."

Cloud rolled his eyes, "Hey, it's completely safe for me to work on my bombs here. I haven't made a single mistake with them and I haven't set off any of them by accident yet."

"Yes, the key word being, 'yet'." I replied, emphasizing my point. Cloud was about to retort, but then he grumbled, "Fine." And then began to pack up his equipment.

I turned back towards Jupiter, "So, Lexus and I ran into Neon earlier. She said that you wanted to see me."

Jupiter nodded, his earlier cheery expression suddenly being replaced by a serious mask of emotion. "Yes, take a seat. It's very important."

I sat down at the table, intrigued by Jupiter's sudden change in mood, "What is it? What's going on?"

Jupiter paused for a moment, "We've found another one."

With those four words, my heart skipped a beat, "Wait, are you sure?"

Jupiter nodded, "Yes."

"Where is it?"

"Cloudsdale, you'll leave Canterlot in Swift's airship in exactly one hour. Your team, as well as Team Calvary and Team Vortex will be the whole group who is going to assist the players in Cloudsdale for the fight."

I nodded, "Yes, sir."

Jupiter stood up and began to walk from the table, "I want you to gather your team and tell them to get ready and meet me at the castle in an hour. Also, I want you to tell Violet Runner everything, and have his team prepare themselves. Meanwhile, I'll inform Team Vortex myself." With that, Jupiter walked out of the door of our base, closing it behind him.

Meanwhile, Cross and Cloud glanced at each other with curious looks, trying to figure out what Jupiter was talking about. Cross looked towards me, "Um, what exactly was he saying?"

I glanced towards the unicorn, a small grin on my face, "Go find Lexus and Sky. Tell them to prepare to leave in an hour. I'll be back after I tell Violet the news." I then got up and proceeded to gallop to the front door.

Cloud shouted after me, "Why? What news?"

I glanced behind my shoulder and gave him a small smirk, "Didn't you hear Jupiter? The next boss room has been found in Cloudsdale, and we're going to help them fight the boss." With that, I ran out of the building and began to gallop towards Team Calvary's base.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Soon, I found myself standing in front of the Team Calvary base, a little winded by my gallop to get here. I didn't bother knocking as I opened the door and walked inside uninvited.

As I entered, I spotted Soul and Dylan sitting at a small table, both of them holding their own hands of cards as they played a game that I recognized: Poker.

Dylan pushed a few bits into the middle of the table, "I'll bet five bits." Soul then pushed in five of his own to meet Dylan's bet.

Soul's expression was emotionless, "Alright, lay down your hand." Dylan complied and set his hand down on the table, face up,

"Two pair with queens and eights. Beat that."

Soul smirked, "Not bad. However, that doesn't beat a flush." The unicorn laid down his hand to reveal a flush of spades, ranging between 9 and a king.

Dylan groaned as Soul took the betting pot of bits, "How are you doing this? I've only beaten you in two rounds so far."

Soul smirked, "You know you don't have to lay down your hand every time. You could just fold if you know you have bad cards."

I cleared my throat, trying to catch their attentions. They both heard me and turned towards where I stood. Soul raised an eyebrow, "Oh, hey Shadow. I didn't see you come in. Want to join in? We're playing Poker."

I shook my head, "Not right now. Listen, where's Violet? I need to talk to him."

"He's down in the forge." Dylan replied.

I nodded, "Right, thanks." I turned around and ran down the set of stairs that led down to the forge.

The forge, just like any time that I visited, was dark, hot, and pretty dirty. But as I reached the bottom of the stairs, the full forge came into view. I spotted Violet at his usual place by the furnace, wearing some protective equipment for forging. He was holding a bright, molten piece of metal with a pair of tongs, suspending it above the hot fire below.

I watched as Violet then took the molten steel and placed it on top of an anvil, and then began to hammer away at it with a small mallet. I approached Violet as the unicorn finished pounding the metal into the desired shape and then dunked the piece into a bucket of water, sending a column of steam rising up from the container.

Violet held up the metal with his tongs to inspect it closer. But upon further inspection, I realized that the piece of metal resembled a large, metal feather. I wasn't an expert with feathers, but ever since I got my wings, I'd recognize a feather anywhere, even if was made out of metal.

I raised an eyebrow at Violet, "It looks like a feather."

Violet jumped a tiny bit as I spoke, quickly putting the metal feather back on the anvil, "Oh, Shadow. I didn't hear you come down here. What's up?"

Curious as I was about the metal feather and why Violet was making it, I would have asked about the craft. But I figured that now wasn't really the time to ask. I cleared my throat, "Jupiter says that another boss room has been found in Cloudsdale, and he wants your team, as well as mine and Eclipse's to aid the players in Cloudsdale with the battle."

Violet frowned, "Really?"

I nodded, "Yes. Jupiter wants everyone ready to leave in an hour. Once your team is ready, meet up with everyone else at Swift's airship. Got it?"

Violet nodded as he took off some of his forging equipment, "Got it. I'll get my team ready right away."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Within an hour, everyone in our group had been gathered, and our airship was almost ready to take off. We all stood on deck, standing before Jupiter as he gave us a final briefing of the upcoming boss battle.

Jupiter cleared his throat, "Now that everyone is here and ready, we can begin. You see, the door to the boss room was found at the very top of Sky Tower, the dungeon that is located near Cloudsdale. No one has opened the door yet, but given the circumstances of the dungeon, the boss is most likely one that will be able to fly."

Sky raised a hoof, "But if it can fly, then why not send a team with more pegasi or other players that can fly? Heck, our teams are mostly unicorns, and we can't walk on clouds."

Jupiter nodded, "Yes, that is true. But, we already have a surplus of pegasi up in Cloudsdale. However, they need more magical support, and that's where you will come in. And as for the issue of walking on clouds, Eclipse has already taken care of that. Since he deals with gravity spells, he has come up with a weightlessness spell that should make you just as light as a pegasus."

I raised an eyebrow, "Does it work?"

Eclipse nodded from the side, "Yep, Swift helped me in testing it. He flew me up to the clouds in the airship and then I used the spell on myself. It worked just fine, and while I'm at it, I might as well mention that clouds are probably the softest things you'll ever be on in your life."

I smiled to myself, That's true. I've experienced that firsthand, and I didn't need a weightlessness spell to do it.

Jupiter continued, "Now, you all will be the only ones from the Knights of Harmony that will aid the players in Cloudsdale in this battle. This is because the other teams of the guild are needed elsewhere at the moment. Also, I won't be going with you to fight in this battle, so I'm putting Shadowflame in charge of leading this group."

The admin turned towards me, "Once you arrive in Cloudsdale, find the admin there. His name is Solar Flare. Follow every order that he gives you and watch yourselves. You're fighting in an unfamiliar territory, and we don't want any accidents to happen."

I nodded, "Yes, sir."

Jupiter turned to face everyone else, "This is where I leave you now. Watch each other's backs and make it back safely. The Knights of Harmony will need their best warriors in the future. Good luck." With that, Jupiter walked off of the airship and hopped back down to the castle grounds below.

Back up on deck, I turned to Swift, "Prepare the ship. Let's get this thing up in the air. Set a course for Cloudsdale."

Swift nodded and flew over to the helm, and within two minutes, we were airborne.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I stood at the stern of the airship, gazing out ahead towards our course through the sky. A small breeze of wind blew across the ship’s deck as we flew in the open air. I felt my wings twitch underneath my cloak as the breeze rippled across them, longing to spread wide open and take to the sky.

I shook my head as I resisted the temptation, I can’t fly, not right now. Everyone would see.

I was pulled out of my thoughts as Lexus walked up beside me. I glanced back towards him, “What’s everyone else doing?”

Lexus paused for a moment, “Well, Dylan and Soul are below deck, playing poker. Dylan did mention something about winning his bits back from Soul. Plus I think Cross and Cloud joined into the game too. Violet and Neon are talking about something below deck, but I have no idea what it is. Siren is roaming about the ship, Eclipse is up at the helm with Swift, and strangely enough, I have no idea where Sky is.”

I smirked, “Well, don't look at me. I've known Sky for years and I still don't know where I'd find him.”

Lexus chuckled, “Yeah, I guess he'll turn up when we get to Cloudsdale.”

I nodded, “So, were you able to clear things up with Neon about forgetting your own date?”

Lexus let out a sigh, “Well, the only reason why I forgot about the date was because I was busy helping you keep your secret safe while I taught you to fly. But Neon was peeved that I had forgotten and she wanted to know why I had forgotten. I didn’t want Neon to find out about the truth, but I’m a terrible liar. I’m the Element of Honesty after all.”

I glanced towards Lexus, a worried expression evident on my face, “Did you tell her?”

Lexus shook his head, “No. Since I couldn’t lie, I told her that I couldn’t tell her right now. She trusts me enough that she accepted that answer, but she’s still pretty pissed off at me. So, basically your secret is still safe, but now you owe me big time.”

I sighed, “Thanks Lexus, but I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep this secret. I mean, if I’m fighting anything, during training or even a boss battle, my cloak will sometimes reveal my sides. If that happens during the battle in Cloudsdale, then somebody for sure is bound to see my wi-… My secret.”

Lexus paused for a moment, “Yeah, I see. What are you going to do?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to do what I can to keep my secret safe, without rousing any suspicion. If I’m lucky, I might be able to keep everybody from seeing them, but that’s a very slim chance.”

Lexus nodded, “Yeah. It’s going to be a lot harder to hide them up in Cloudsdale, that’s for sure. But don’t worry; I’ll be there to serve as a distraction if needed.”

I smiled, “Thanks.”

Lexus turned around, “Well, I’m gonna head downstairs and talk to Neon. Hopefully I can convince her to be less angry with me while we’re in Cloudsdale.” And so, I watched as the Pegasus walked down the stairs leading below deck, leaving me to my thoughts.

I turned and looked up towards the helm, where Swift and Eclipse stood. Swift appeared to be showing Eclipse all of the controls to the ship. It was funny really, how in the past month, Swift had managed to become good friends with Eclipse and Siren, but since they were team mates, I guess it would only be natural.

Oh, yeah. There’s something that I forgot to mention. Two weeks after Cordon left the Knights of Harmony, Eclipse had asked Swift to join Team Vortex, because Cordon had ordered Eclipse to recruit new team members before he had left. Swift accepted the offer, and because of that, Team Vortex was put in charge of maintaining and crewing Swift’s airship, which the three of them had named, Westfalia.

Ever since Team Vortex was put in charge of crewing Westfalia, Swift had employed himself with the task of teaching Eclipse and Siren to control and fly the airship. So far they were both pretty good ship flyers, but neither of them were quite as good as Swift. That was due to the fact that Swift had been flying airships for longer and also because of his player ability.

You see, Swift’s player ability was called, “Wind Watcher”, which allowed him to physically see the air currents around him. With that ability, he point the airship in the direction that a breeze was blowing, he could ride the wind and fly the ship faster than normal. He could probably even guide an airship through a massive storm, full of cross breezes, and still come out with the ship in one piece. However most pilots, if they ever flew into a storm, would have their ships torn up in the wind and plummet down to their deaths.

I’m not saying that anybody should fly an airship right into the middle of a storm, but if it was necessary, Swift could do it.

As I continued to watch Eclipse and Swift look around at the controls to the ship, I caught a small glint of reflected light out of the corner of my eye. I turned just in time to see a large, double bladed battle axe fly out of the sky, wedging itself partway into the floor boards of the deck, only a few feet in front of me.

I quickly turned to see what the source of the ax was, only to see a nearby cloud burst into small fragments as about six griffins, armed with weapons of all kinds, flew out of it, heading directly for our ship.

I turned back towards Swift and Eclipse, drawing my weapons in the process, “All hands on deck! We’ve got griffins coming off from the port bow!”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Soul winced with pain as he clutched his side, the place where one of the griffins managed to scrape him with their claws, "Gosh, I didn't think fighting those griffins would be so hard."

Violet shrugged as he handed Soul a health potion to heal the wound, "Well, that's because we aren't used to fighting airborne."

We had all managed to fight off the griffins, and everyone was recollecting themselves as we neared our destination. I stood at the stern of the airship.

Suddenly, Dylan piped up, pointing a hoof off towards the starboard bow, "Hey, there it is!"

We all glanced towards where he was pointing to see the airborne city of Equestria: Cloudsdale.

I looked back towards Swift standing at the wheel, "Bring us in!"

Swift nodded and altered the course of the airship towards the floating city.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Everyone on the ship stared in awe as we pulled up to the makeshift dock at the edge of the enormous city. Sure we had all seen what Cloudsdale had looked like from the show, but to really see it ourselves was almost overwhelming. The buildings made of clouds were extremely detailed with designs, and there were several rainbows that acted like waterfalls as they descended from the clouds and disappeared in thin air.

All of the clouds that held up the city were all on different levels of height, letting the city be large and dense, while still have so much room to travel from cloud to cloud. Everything about the city just enhanced the magical feeling around it.

Once Swift had stopped the airship in the air, we all turned our attention to Eclipse. The white unicorn cleared his throat, "Okay, now it's time to use the weightlessness spell. Everybody get close to each other. It drains my magic faster if you're all farther apart."

We all did as instructed and stepped closer together. Meanwhile, Eclipse's horn began to glow with white aura as he prepared to cast the weightlessness spell. And then, Eclipse released the spell and everyone without wings, and myself, were surrounded in white light. It only lasted for a moment, but then it subsided as Eclipse finished the spell.

Cross raised an eyebrow at Eclipse, "So, did it work?"

Eclipse nodded, "Yeah, it should have. Who wants to test it first?"

Suddenly, Sky ran out from our group towards the side railing of the airship, "Me first!" He then jumped over the railing, and onto the clouds beside the ship, causing a small puff of cloud to spring up from under his hooves as he landed.

Everyone who was still on the ship ran over to the edge of the ship to see how Sky fared in testing the effects of the weightlessness spell, only to find Sky rolling about on his back on the clouds. Sky let out a laugh as he laid on the clouds, "Ha, I heard that clouds were soft, but I didn't think they'd be this comfy."

Dylan chuckled a bit as he watched his older brother, "Hey, I'm next." With that, Dylan was the next one overboard the ship, landing onto the clouds as well. One by one, everyone jumped out of the ship onto the clouds of Cloudsdale. Naturally, I was the last one to go, just making sure that no one accidentally saw my wings when I hopped of the ship.

Everyone who hadn't experienced the feel of clouds before were having a great time as they felt the softness of the airborne material. However, our fun time was cut short as I spotted somebody trotting across the clouds from the city towards us.

He was an earth pony, with a gray mane and brown fur. He had a single broad sword strapped across his back, along with heavy, saddle armor that covered up his flank, hiding his cutie mark from sight. He had a Player ID above his head that read: Ti-Rone. I figured that there weren't a lot of earth ponies here in Cloudsdale, so this guy must've been the admin of the area.

I turned to my group members, "Hey, look alive. Here comes the Cloudsdale admin." Everyone stood up and lined up as Ti-Rone reached us.

The admin took a quick look at our group, a small welcoming smile across his face, "Ah, so you must be the group that Jupiter was sending: The Elements of Harmony."

Violet cocked his head in confusion, "I think you might be confused. We're the Knights of Harmony. We've never been called the Elements of Harmony before, even though that's who we are."

Ti-Rone nodded, "Yes, 'The Knights of Harmony' is your guild's name, but Jupiter likes to keep all of his guild members to be organized, so he tends to name the groups. Since every Element of Harmony that we've found so far is in your group, it's natural that Jupiter would call your group the Elements of Harmony."

Everyone nodded their heads in approval, giving a few comments of likeness towards the name. I shrugged, "Well, it certainly does suit us. So, in answer to your question, yes; We're the Elements of Harmony."

Ti-Rone nodded, "Good. We've got everything prepared for the boss fight. We'll be ready for anything Discord's got prepared for us in there."

"Wait, so where exactly is the boss room located? Is there some kind of dungeon around here in the city?" Lexus asked.

Ti- Rone pointed a hoof up towards the sky, where a massive cloud drifted high above Cloudsdale, "Up there on that cloud is a gigantic dungeon known as Sky Tower, the tallest of all dungeons in Equestria. It took some doing, but our players scaled the tower up to its highest point. It was up at the top of the tower that we found the boss room. Right now, all of our pegasi players are waiting at the entrance to the tower for your arrival."

I nodded, "Okay, we'll hop back onto the airship and fly up there right away."

Suddenly, high above us, a lone pegasus soared down from the large cloud where Sky Tower stood. The pegasus then lighted down between us and Ti-Rone. I took a quicker look at the newcomer.

She was a light gray pegasus mare, with a long, off-white mane and tail. The tips of her hooves were a firey red color, while her eyes sparkled blue. Her cutie mark was a rough depiction of a comet, and the only armor she wore was a pair of goggles, a green band around her fore leg, and a green scarf wrapped around her neck. Her player ID read: Comet

Comet turned to face Ti-Rone, "Sir, everyone is ready to depart for the boss room." She glanced back towards our group, "And I see that the Elements of Harmony have made it as well."

Ti-Rone nodded, "Very well. Shadow, this is Comet. She's a solo player and my personal lieutenant over the Cloudsdale players. She'll be leading our players while they fight the boss battle." The admin turned back to Comet, "Fly back up to everyone else. Tell them to get their weapons ready and lead them inside once the Elements of Harmony get up there."

Comet quickly nodded and flew back up to the entrance of Sky Tower. Meanwhile, Ti-Rone spoke to our group, "Now, I won't be going with you to this boss battle. I have to stay behind and watch over the city for any situation that might occur. You better get up to Sky Tower right now. Waiting isn't one of Comet's strong suits."

I nodded, "Right." I turned to my group, "Get back on the airship and fly us up to Sky Tower." We all then boarded our ship again, while Ti-Rone waved a hoof goodbye towards us, "Good Luck!"

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Soon, we were at the base of Sky Tower, standing alongside Cloudsdale's legion of pegasi players as we gazed up at the precarious structure in front of us. True to its name, Sky Tower was a giant tower made entirely of clouds. The clouds it was made up of seemed to spiral around itself, as if it were a twister that had been frozen in time. The pinnacle of the tower rose up several hundred feet up into the air

Siren whistled in amazement as she looked up at Sky Tower, "Wow, when they said this was the tallest dungeon in Equestria, they weren't joking."

Cloud squinted his eyes as he looked up towards the top of the tower, "Man, I can't even see where the top ends. The tower seems to go on forever."

"All right, people. Let's get started!" Comet shouted out to all of the players before her, while she stood in front of the open entrance to Sky Tower. I stood just beside her as she commanded the troops, "Now that the Elements of Harmony have arrived, we'll have all of the magical support we'll need. You all know the plan already; Teams Star Scream and Raptor will lead the frontal charge, while teams Pidgeotto and Falcon cover their backs from behind. A few members of the Elements of Harmony will accompany each team."

I spoke towards my group, "Team Calvary, you'll stay towards the back to support Teams Pidgeotto and Falcon. Teams Equitum and Vortex will be in the front to protect and fight with Teams Star Scream and Raptor. Does everyone understand?"

Everyone present spoke in unison, "Yes, sir."

Comet nodded in approval, "Good. We'll enter the Tower now. Everyone fall in line. I'll lead everyone inside with the Elements of Harmony up front." She turned towards me, "Let's go. Once we enter the tower, it'll teleport us to the top floor where we last put a checkpoint."

I nodded and everyone followed in line behind Comet as she entered through the entrance to Sky Tower. But as Comet entered through the threshold of the tower, her body began to disappear as if she were passing through an invisible membrane. I assumed this was the teleporting effect, so I followed in after her.

I passed through the teleportation field and found myself in a brightly lit corridor of clouds, and Comet was right in front of me. I continued walking and looked back behind me to see the rest of my team and the Cloudsdale players enter in behind me.

But then, as we continued walking down the corridor, a familiar sight for my team came into view. It was the same set of giant double doors, detailed extremely well like all of the others we had passed through before when we retrieved another element of harmony: The boss door.

Suddenly, Dylan piped up, "There's the boss door. Race you there!" Without another word, the young earth pony galloped towards the giant doors. Meanwhile, I chuckled a bit as I saw Sky and Soul roll their eyes to my right.

Soul groaned, "He's always anxious to get anywhere first. I'm honestly starting to doubt that he's your brother, Sky."

"Hmph, well he's not me." Sky replied.

But then, I watched as Soul took another look towards where Dylan galloped, but then his eyes went wide and a small gasp escaped his mouth, "Wait! Dylan, come back!" The gray unicorn suddenly lurched forward with incredible speed towards Dylan.

I called out after him, "Soul, what's wrong?"

But then, my question was answered as I watched what happened next. As soon as Dylan was twenty feet from the boss room door, the cloud floor between him and the door suddenly vanished into thin air. Dylan let out a yelp as the clouds disappeared beneath his hooves as he was about to drop down out of the empty air. But then suddenly, Soul reached the edge of the cloud floor that remained, using his magic to grab onto Dylan before he dropped, suspending him in mid air.

Sky's and my eyes went wide at what we saw, "Dylan!" We both ran to Soul's sides and used our own magic to help tow Dylan back onto solid cloud.

By the time we had pulled Dylan back to safety, we were joined by Comet and the rest of our group, while the Cloudsdale players stayed back from us a ways.

Sky looked down at his younger brother, who was in momentary shock from a near death experience, "Hey, Dylan. You alright?"

Dylan paused, but then nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine. That was a close call."

I nodded, "Yeah, you're lucky Soul caught up to in time to catch you." But then, something struck my mind, "Wait a minute..." I looked towards Soul, "How exactly did you know the floor was going to disappear like that, Soul?"

"It's my player ability, which is called 'Indirect Sight'." Soul explained, "It allows me to see something from a different person's view. It's like I can borrow somebody's eyes for a little while so I can see something that's hidden."

There was a small pause while we tried to comprehend what Soul had said, but then, Dylan shouted angrily, "Wait a minute! You've kept your player ability secret all this time? You must've been using it to see my hand whenever we played cards! That's why I can never beat you. You cheated!"

Soul smirked a bit, "Actually, I don't use my ability while we play cards. You're just bad at poker."

While Dylan sulked from Soul's reply, Lexus piped up, "Hold on, if Soul's ability let him see things from somebody else's eyes, then that means that somebody must have known that the floor was going to drop. But nobody here knew that the floor would have dropped, so who's eyes did Soul use to see it coming?"

Soul paused for a moment, "I'm not exactly sure who's eyes I used. But when I saw the trap, it was like I was looking at everything all at once. I could see every detail in this corridor, even the back of my own head. Seeing all of that at once was a bit chaotic for my head."

I gasped, "Wait a minute, I think I might know who's eyes you used Soul. It must have been somebody who is basically one with the game, someone who could see everything and control the game at will." Everybody in my group suddenly came to realization about who I was describing.

Comet's eyes widened, "Wait, you don't mean..."

I nodded towards her, "Discord."

As if the Draconequus' name was a que, the room suddenly got darker than before, and an evil laugh pierced through the air, "Well done, my little ponies. It's true, Soul did use my eyes to see the trap."

Lighting flashed from the clouds that made up the corridor, striking in midair above the gap in the floor where the trap had been. The lightning flashed once, but then subsided to reveal Discord. The lord of chaos looked down towards Soul with a look of disappointment, "It's true that I can see everything in here, but why'd you have to go and ruin the good trap I set. I would have liked to see Dylan here fall to his doom."

Sky angrily drew his swords, "Discord, don't you dare come near him again or I will destroy you."

Discord merely chuckled, "Now Sky, you don't want to use up all of your energy fighting me. After all, you still have a boss to fight. Oh, and while I'm at it," Discord snapped his fingers and a wall of clouds appeared right behind my group, separating us and Comet from the rest of the Cloudsdale players, "I must inform you that I won't let anyone else fight in this boss battle, except for the Elements of Harmony. They are the defenders of peace and harmony, so it's only natural that they fight against my creation of chaos."

Comet shouted at Discord, a pair of knives suddenly appearing in her hooves, "No, that's not fair. You just cut off the bulk of our attacking force!"

Discord sneered at Comet, "Please, I was kind enough to leave you in the fight. Just be grateful that I didn't leave you behind with your other pegasi friends." The draconequus laughed evilly, "Now, I will let you pass to face my monster." With a snap of his fingers, he was gone, and the floor leading towards the boss door reappeared.

Everyone from our group was almost used to Discord's unexpected actions, but that didn't make us any less angry at him. Comet, however, was furious. The pegasus began pounding with all of her might against the wall of cloud that separated her from the other Cloudsdale players, "Hey, can you hear me? Anyone?"

Sky groaned in frustration, "Gah, can't we ever get a break?"

I sighed as I looked at everyone in our group, "Look, this is Discord. He wants to do everything he can to keep us from succeeding, but he doesn't want to stop us without a little entertainment for himself. I think he blocked us off from the Cloudsdale players because he knew that we'd be too much for his boss. He went and evened the odds into his favor. But that doesn't mean that we can't defeat the boss on our own."

Comet frowned towards me, "Are you saying that we should try to defeat the boss on our own? We'd be crushed."

"Do you even know what the boss is?" I asked.

Comet paused, but then shook her head, "No, nobody looked inside because they were afraid that they'd get locked inside with the monster."

I shrugged, "Well then, how do you know we can't beat it on our own? It was only a few months ago that my team and Team Calvary were dropped down into a dungeon underneath Canterlot to fight a hydra. If this is anything like that, and it most likely is, then we will be able to beat the boss here."

Comet glanced at me warily, but then sighed, "Fine. You've been in more boss battles than I have. I trust that you know what you're doing."

I nodded and I turned to face towards the boss door, "Everybody, get ready. We're going in."

Author's Note:

Special thanks to CometandAqua for sending in their OC: Comet.

Thanks for reading,
-Shadowflame

Comments

[batran]

so which OCs been approved?

[NightmareKnight]

3176468Pretty sure that would be a massive spoiler. He'll introduce 'em when they come in.

[Sharky]

3176917Umm it might just be comet and the admin ti rone

[Shadowflame]

3177979
oops

[Shadowflame]

3178432
3176468
Comet is one of the OC's that was sent in. Ti-Rone is an OC that I made up, and we'll probably never see him again.

[Sharky]

3180357So he's like king yama in dbz

[uscfanatic7]

We still allowed to submit OC's?

[Sirnicklaser111]

yo I really like this story cant wait for your next chapter

[Walkofshade]

Can you please put in an anti-hero? I love those people/ponies. Something assassin-like.Just a suggestion.

[Raybony]

Just to let you know, it seems that Comet's image is broken.

[4428Gamer]

Soul smirked, "Not bad. However, that doesn't beat a flush." The unicorn laid down his hand to reveal a flush of spades, ranging between 9 and a king.

Actually, that's a straight flush. I know that this chapter is really old, but I can't help but point that part out. Sorry, I'm obsessed with Texas Hold 'Em.

[Ranun]

the picture of Comet disappeared
so many fics that have some things in them (like pictures or videos) and they just disappear ...

[Golden Flare]

I just finished the chapter, "Off to Cloudsdale!", and I noticed the picture of Comet is missing, could you fix this if you can?

[Akira Dragonborne]

I glanced down at the cliff that I stood on top of, the face of it about twenty five feet off of the ground. Even in ELO, falling off of a cliff like this could still hurt a player, even kill them if they were low enough in their level. I however was at level 50, which meant if I fell off the cliff, I wouldn't be hurt that badly. But that's where having wings came in.

I took a few steps back, away from the edge of the cliff. I stopped about five feet away from the edge, just far enough to get a running start. I flared my wings open, and the two appendages seemed to breath a sigh of relief as the wind softly rippled against my feathers. The feeling was good, but not nearly as enjoyable as full flight.

I took a deep breath, "Let's do this."

Instantly, I galloped towards the edge of the cliff and leaped off of it. I let myself free fall from the cliff for only a second, but then I quickly flapped my wings hard and began to soar right above the ground below. I shifted the position of my wings and began to flap them harder, ascending high into the air and into the clouds above.

The wind blew past my wings and my mane at such high speeds, it was almost like riding in a car with the window rolled down. But riding in a car didn't even compare to flying on your own strength, a hundred feet in the air, with nothing that could bring you back down to earth.

"WHO-HOO!" I yelled in jubilation as I curled my wings against my sides, causing me to plummet down towards the ground in a nose dive. I was going so fast that tears began to leak out of the corner of my eyes. But as I reached the ground I unfurled my wings and arced backwards into a loop-de-loop. I then proceeded to continue to pull off several other tricks that I had come up with in the past month, including the Barrel Roll and a corkscrew twist.

Man, I had only had my wings for a little under a month, but I've become a pretty fair flyer. I would compare my skill to that of Rainbow Dash's, but I didn't need to make my ego any bigger.

But then, as I flew near the level of the clouds, I glanced down towards the ground to see a single figure standing in the middle of a grove of trees. I knew him as one of the only players who was a better flyer than me, and he was looking directly at me. It was Lexus, and he waved a hoof towards me as he tried to call me down.

I complied and quickly descended down towards the grove, lighting down just in front of him. I nodded towards him, folding my wings back against my sides, "Hey, Lexus. How was that?"

Dude.

The Envelope...

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