Sweetie Belle wants to get into the wonderful world of video games. Too bad she's awful at it.
Button Mash likes video games. Sweetie Belle likes Button Mash. Button doesn't know much about Sweetie. Sweetie doesn't know much about video games. Following this formula, Sweetie Belle decides she must learn to like video games in order for Button to learn to like her. It's a solid plan.
Except for the fact that she sucks at video games.
Sweetie Belle was about as happy of a fifteen year old girl as she could be. She did solid in school, she had a loving family, good friends, as well as good looks and a decent fashion sense. She also went to Canterlot High, which was developing a reputation for being a hotspot for invading magical, otherworldly creatures, so there was nary a dull moment. In fact, her older sister was close friends with both a trio of brain-washing, negativity-feeding singing sirens and a former unicorn, former psycho she-demon, current lead guitarist in their band by the name of Sunset Shimmer. Sweetie Belle learned to like Sunny enough, especially after the older girl bestowed a sage piece of advice.
It was a Friday afternoon, with the last few minutes of lunch winding down. Sweetie Belle was sitting alone at the table she normally shared with her two friends. Today, Scootaloo and Applebloom were nowhere to be found, leaving Sweetie Belle to stare out blankly as she silently ate her lunch. She didn’t think she was looking at anything in particular, but her gaze did occasionally shift and linger on a group of boys a few tables away. Sunset Shimmer noticed the slightly dejected and lonely look on Sweetie Belle’s face and decided to help her out.
“Sup, Sweetie?” asked Sunset, sliding into a seat next to her. “You’re looking kinda down. Where are the girls?”
“They’re… They’re sick,” lied Sweetie Belle. Sunset laughed. Sweetie Belle was far too smart, kind, and studious to be able to lie very well.
“Skipping, gotcha. Well, that would explain where Rainbow ran off to,” chuckled Sunset. “So, can’t help but notice that you’re staring over there. See a boy you like or something?” Instantly, Sweetie’s face bloomed red in the most innocent, adorable blush Sunset had ever seen, which was saying something, considering she hailed from a land of colorful ponies (who were, arguably, the cutest creatures to ever be conceived).
“You know, I could hook you up,” teased Sunset. “Who is it?”
“It’s nobody, thank you,” lied Sweetie in spectacularly unconvincing fashion. “Nobody at all.”
“Is it Snips or Snails?”
“Ew!”
“Thank god. Well, if you ever need some advice… I know you’d probably go to your sister first, but…” said Sunset. She leaned in close and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Between you and me, Rares isn’t the best to talk to about relationships. After Blueblood, she sorta went a bit… Well, there’s a reason she doesn’t date anymore, kay?”
“Thank you. I’ll let you know if something comes up,” said Sweetie, sticking to her facade. Sunset smiled and nodded, then rose from her seat. Just as she was about to walk off, she heard Sweetie’s call. “Wait a second!”
“Yes?” asked Sunset, trying to hide her smirk.
“L-let’s say, just hypothetically, let’s say there was a boy I liked,” said Sweetie Belle, still blushing warmly. “And what if we’ve never spoken before?”
“Well, if that was the scenario, then I’d suggest that you just talk to him,” said Sunset. “Only way for you guys to start talking is if you start talking.”
“But I don’t understand the things that he’s into. We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“We still dealing with hypotheticals here?” asked Shimmer smugly.
“Just help me!”
Sunset Shimmer laughed, which only served to make Sweetie all the more embarrassed. Her face radiated a tangible heat, which Sunset found time to feel slightly bad about. Mostly, she found Sweetie to be hilarious and adorable, and she wanted to help her out desperately. It would seem that Princess Twilight’s lessons had mostly taken a hold of the former Bad Girl of CHS.
“Okay, if you have nothing in common, then make something in common,” said Sunset. “Find something he likes and give it a try. Best case scenario, you’re super good and you have something to share with him. Worst case, you’re awful, and you can ask him to teach you. Win-win, if you ask me.”
Just then, the bell rang, which had a mass effect of killing everyone’s excitement. School time lunch has a strange way of somehow deluding students into believing that they are someplace other than the school that they detest. Sunset was among that group, and she groaned loudly.
“Crap. Man, pre-cal sucks,” said Sunset grumpily. She thought on it, then she shrugged. “Meh. I’m still doing better than Aria. She failed her homework 2 weeks ago, and now she’s super pissed with the class. Anyway, good luck, Sweetie. Make sure you come tell me how it goes out with you and Button.”
Sweetie Belle gasped, her blush intensifying just as it began dying down. Sunset Shimmer cackled to herself, then, without explaining how she knew, she melded into the group of student evacuating from the cafeteria. Once Sweetie got over the shock and developed a game plan, she soon followed. Sweetie Belle was about to take herself way out of her element, and she could only pray that it worked out. Sweetie wasn’t quite sure when it was happening, but as soon as she decided what she would do, she confirmed that she was glad she talked to Sunset Shimmer.
After school, Sweetie hung around the front of the school, where Button Mash and his friends often met. While there, she caught a few words that she decided were of key importance; “Xbox”, a term she was vaguely familiar with, “eeso”, which was fairly mysterious, and, the strangest to her, “cod”, which she thought was a fish, and was confused as to why Button and his friends were talking about it.
Sweetie Belle found herself strolling down the street, trying to decide how she’d acquire all the things she needed. She reasoned she could play at Scootaloo’s house, but she wanted to have an option for when she was at home. She could always ask her parents for a console, but they’d probably reluctant. She was about a block from her house, when she decided she would have to save up her allowance until she had enough. Then, as if the world was listening in on her, a solution presented herself.
“Hey! You!”
Sweetie Belle froze nervously, because she recognized the voice. She knew there was no need to be afraid, that she was different now, but it was still hard to shake the feeling that the Siren was up to no good. Sweetie Belle nervously turned to see Adagio Dazzle walking in her direction. She had a very strange appearance, wearing khakis, an electric blue t-shirt and a similarly blue hat, both bearing the logo of “DJ SC-R4TCH”. The strangest thing about her was that none of her orange hair was visibly poking out of her hat.
“H-hey. What’s up?” asked Sweetie Belle nervously.
“Sweetie Belle, right? Rarity’s little sister?” asked Adagio. Sweetie nodded. “Wonderful. Alright, so a few weeks ago, Aria and Sonata were wrestling when Aria ‘accidentally’ elbow dropped my Xbox. Foolishly, I delegated the task of ordering a new one to Aria, who made Sonata do it. She brought two. Using my credit card.”
“Uh-huh,” said Sweetie, still not really comfortable with the situation.
“You can imagine my shock when two boxes showed up at my door, and when my bill was $250 more than it should’ve been,” said Adagio. “The site I ordered from has a strict no-refund policy, and I can’t be bothered to trade it in at GameStop. It’d be a shame for me to just throw it out, so I was wondering if you know someone who could want it.”
“You’re giving away an Xbox 360, brand new out the box, for free?” asked Sweetie skeptically. Adagio nodded. “I’d like it. What’s the catch?”
“The catch is you tell Sunny to hurry up and get Twilight here,” said Adagio. “She needs to hurry up with that hair potion.”
“Hair potion?”
“Look, do you want it or not? I’ll bring it your place in a few hours, okay?” said Adagio. She smiled smally. “I’ll write this up as my good deed of the day.”
“T-thank you! Thank you, so much!” squealed Sweetie. Adagio chuckled, gripped by a warm, fuzzy feeling that made her want to throw up, but in a strangely satisfying way. She pulled a pen and a piece of paper from her pocket, scribbled her cell number, and handed it to Sweetie. The two waved their goodbyes, and went on their separate ways. Sweetie Belle was excited to begin her new life as a gamer girl.
She had no idea what she was getting herself into.
Adagio delivered Sweetie Belle’s console at 6:00. Sweetie Belle sent out two text messages at 6:05. There was a knock at her door at 6:15, and Scootaloo was helping Sweetie Belle set up her Xbox by 6:20.
They were holed up in Sweetie Belle’s bedroom. Normally, at about this time, Sweetie Belle would be in her sister’s room, inadvertently and invariably ruining the perfect neatness of the room. Today, however, she was sitting on her plush green bed, with her TV on, one of her best friends grinning to her left, and an odd piece of plastic in her hands.
“Wait, how come Applebloom couldn’t make it, exactly?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Oh, she got caught skipping, and Aj gave it to her hard,” chuckled Scootaloo. “She wouldn’t be much help, anyway. She’s a PlayStation gal.”
“Right. I might get one of those, too, if I can afford it,” said Sweetie Belle. She looked up at the screen, which was displaying an awfully unfamiliar set of menus. “Uh… So, what should we be doing here?”
“Oh, it’s super simple. First thing we’re gonna want to do is get you an Xbox Live account,” explained Scootaloo, helping Sweetie to navigate the screen. “This console came with a 3-month trial for the premium Gold membership. It’ll be free for now, but after the trial, you’ll have to cough up, like, $20 a month.” Sweetie Belle tilted her head in confusion.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“You need a Gold membership to play games online with other people,” said Scootaloo. “It lets you watch Netflix and use other apps through the console, and they give away two games a month.”
“Oooh, that’s nice of them,” noted Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle continued their way through the intricacies of starting up an Xbox Live account. They picked out a fitting username (Gamertag, as Sweetie Belle soon knew it as). It took them a few tries, but they finally decided on “Sweet n SourB”, which Sweetie Belle was very fond of. Feeling very happy with herself, Sweetie Belle began to get a feel for both the hardware and software of her new hobby.
“Hey, what does that number zero mean?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“That’s how many friends you have.”
“Well, that’s rude,” said Sweetie Belle, crossing her arms. Scootaloo laughed, then gave Sweetie a soft little jab to the shoulder.
“Oh, chill out. You’ve been online for ten seconds,” said Scootaloo. She took the controller from Sweetie Belle and scrolled to the Marketplace. “You have to meet people to get XBL friends. For now, we should probably get you some Gamerscore.”
“What?”
“They’re points you get for getting Achievements.”
“Ooooh!” nodded Sweetie Belle. She looked at Scootaloo with faux-comprehension. “What?”
“Achievements are special challenges or tasks in a game that give you Gamerscore,” explained Scootaloo, shaking her head. “Gamerscore is basically your rep. The more Gamerscore you have, the better you are at video games. In theory. We need to get you some Gamerscore so that people will see you and go ‘Oh, what a cool gamer chick that is, I really wanna be her friend’, and then they send you requests.”
“Alright, then. So, I need to get some Gamerscore by playing games, right?” asked Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo nodded. “Well, let’s play some games. What do we got?”
“Well, nothing right now. While we were talking, I started up the download for the free game for this half of the month,” said Scootaloo. “I think we can have some fun tonight, before it gets too late. You sure your folks are cool with this late-night gaming session?”
“So long as we keep it down and get up in the morning, we’ll be fine,” said Sweetie. “Rarity’s at Sunset’s house, so they probably won’t even notice us.” Sweetie Belle shrugged nonchalantly. “What type of game is this?” Scootaloo grinned in a weird, conniving, sadistic way.
“It’s what they call a ‘co-optional platformer’,” said Scootaloo. She noticed Sweetie Belle’s confusion, and her smile only broadened. “Don’t worry, it’s not too complicated. I’ll work you through it.”
About twenty minutes into the game, BattleBlock Theater, Sweetie Belle realized that she had made a grave mistake. She didn’t really have much clue of what she was in for, but she expected it to be a calm, fun team-building exercise that would strengthen her friendship with Scootaloo.
“Is this some backhanded way of saying you don’t want to be friends anymore?” asked Sweetie Belle after Scootaloo had kicked her into the water for the twelfth time. With every death, Sweetie Belle felt a part of her soul die.
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Scootaloo, with an amazing amount of smugness. “I thought you liked this game.”
“I liked the opening! The narrator was funny, I thought this game would be funny!” cried Sweetie Belle. She respawned and quickly leapt up to a platform up and to her right. Scootaloo was a bit ahead of her, and seemed to be progressing normally. Instead of following her, Sweetie went to the left and jumped to a higher platform, where the beautiful emerald gem that counted score waited for her. Just as she jumped to retrieve it, she was struck by a random top hat that sent her plummeting into the icy depths of the water that had claimed her life many times before.
“This is funny!” laughed Scootaloo.
“Scootaloo! You’re supposed to be helping me learn video games!”
“I am helping you. I’ve gotten you fifteen Gamerscore so far,” said Scootaloo, raising her hands defensively. “Besides, you gotta learn to deal with Trolls somehow.”
Sweetie Belle was very, very, very annoyed. She didn’t know what a Troll was, but she was quite confident that she hated them, and hated Scootaloo for being one. She wanted to stop playing this stupid game. In fact, if she wasn’t so infatuated with Button Mash, she would’ve ripped her Xbox right out of the socket and dumped it on Adagio’s doorstep.
This was the first time since Sweetie discovered her crush that she considered that Button may not actually be worth it.
“You’re a Troll,” grumbled Sweetie Belle. She respawned and went back to retrieve the gem she had been seeking out all this time. Maybe, if she kept Scootaloo sort of distracted, she’d be able to get the last few gems they needed and book it to the exit.
“You don’t know what that means yet,” noted Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement. Scootaloo smirked, extremely amused by the mass annoyance that Sweetie was experiencing.
“Your problem is that you play too nice,” said Scootaloo.
“I thought this was a cooperative game!” whined Sweetie. “Doesn’t that mean we’re supposed to work together?”
“Sure does. Too bad this isn’t cooperative. It’s co-optional. That means we can either choose to help each other out…” Scootaloo fired her top hat at Sweetie Belle, knocking her down to drown once again. “Or screw each other over.”
Sweetie Belle respawned, turned towards Scootaloo, and chucked an explosive disk in her direction. The disk knocked Scootaloo to the ground and exploded, blowing Scootaloo to a scattering of limbs, bones that couldn’t possibly belong to her character, and her comically separated head. Scootaloo grinned, and respawned with a fiery purpose. Sweetie Belle laughed quietly, then quickly killed Scootaloo again.
The goal of reaching the end of the level was forgotten. Now, the only thing that mattered to Sweetie Belle was to block and impede Scootaloo at every turn.
“Not so funny now, is it?” said Sweetie mockingly. Scootaloo smirked, then quickly dispatched her friend. Then she killed her again. And again.
“What?! How?! I was killing you just fine a second ago!” demanded Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo just laughed, and killed Sweetie Belle six more times.
“I bought this game months before it was released for free,” cackled Scootaloo. “I know tech that you could only dream of!”
“What the fudge is ‘tech’?!”
Scootaloo laughed, but decided to stop explaining the terminology. Sweetie Belle would learn with time. Right now, Scoots was more occupied with the terribly unfair trouncing that she was unleashing on her friend.
Sweetie Belle sat up in her bed, looking down at Scootaloo, who was sleeping to the right of her bed. Sweetie poked Scootaloo in the back of the head, waiting to see if she’d stir. When she didn’t, Sweetie leapt over to her new Xbox, grabbed up the controller, and turned it on. Once the console was booted up, and scrolled over to BattleBlock Theater. She hit the X button, scrolled through the game details, and clicked “Delete”.
“Good riddance,” muttered Sweetie Belle. She turned off the console and laid her head back against her pillow, humming to herself while she did. She was vaguely satisfied by the soul-crushing experience that was that terrible game. She had survived her first video game session, and it would only be easier from here on out. She hoped so, anyway.
She grinned at the fact that she could now impress Button with her knowledge of the word “Troll”, then closed her eyes for a peaceful sleep.
The next day, Saturday, Sweetie Belle decided that her next gaming attempt should be a solo endeavor. She was planning on using this knowledge to connect with Button, after all, and Scootaloo wouldn’t be there to coach her through a date. Some things, Sweetie Belle had to learn alone. But where to start? The Xbox Live Marketplace was massive, home to thousands of games both old and new. Sweetie Belle was overwhelmed at first, so much so that she had to sit down and write out a criteria for the game she’d play.
Firstly, the game had to be relatively simple and easy to learn. Sweetie had neither the time nor the patience to spend seventy hours learning how to play a game, so she wanted something basic, with few controls that were easy to understand. Secondly, it had to be something she could play alone. Finally, and most importantly, it had to be cheap. Sweetie Belle had already spent almost all of her allowance, so she needed to find something she could afford. After much searching, she found the absolute perfect game: Aegis Wing.
Simple and easy controls? Move, shoot, super attack. Even the game-illiterate Sweetie could figure it out. Solo play? She could play by herself or with up to three of her friends, should she so choose. As for price, it didn’t get much cheaper than free. So, after deciding that this would be the game she chose, she downloaded the free game, started it up, and navigated through the menu. She selected the first mission, Turning Point, read the description for the mission, and selected the purple ship. Then, she pressed the button labeled “Ready”, and the game began.
Sweetie Belle’s ship was drifting through a brownish-orange, clouded sky. Her ship was surrounded in a flashing bubble the same color as her ship. Now, the first thing of any note that Sweetie Belle noticed was the music. It was pretty good, and it did a good job of setting the tone for the game. She didn’t have much time to think about the music, because the first enemy of the level was approaching, just as her shield began to fade.
A little black and red ship, more like a satellite, really, came drifting in from the right. It fired off a little red dot, which drifted only barely quicker than the ship that fired it. With a determined sort of smirk, Sweetie Belle moved downwards and fired at the ship. It exploded after a single jet of purple light, though its projectile continued its trajectory and smacked Sweetie’s ship. The little icon in the upper left that showed her health ring diminished by about half.
“You gotta take some hits to give some hits,” said Sweetie Belle. Two more ships, these ones blue, made their way on screen, firing off a barrage of shots. Sweetie took two more hits and exploded.
“Oh…” Sweetie Belle threw her controller down in disappointment. What she didn’t realize until it was too late was that she still had three more lives, and her ship soon respawned with another purple bubble shield. By the time she grabbed her controller back up, she had crashed into another blue and black ship. She was now down two lives.
“That’s not fair,” whined Sweetie, but she kept her hand on her controller this time. She fired at the incoming ships, doing a decent job at avoiding their projectiles (though she was nicked a few times). After she blew up the last of that group of enemies, she noticed that it had dropped something. It was some sort of rocket, floating and rotating towards her. Out of curiosity, she piloted herself into it. The rocket disappeared, and a new icon appeared next to her health ring: a series of arcing white arrows, and a small number five in the upper corner.
“Oooo, this must me one of those super attack thingies,” Sweetie reasoned. “I’ll try them on the next group of enemies!”
That time came soon, as another cluster of red ships flew on screen. For the sake of research, Sweetie Belle pressed down on the super attack button. Roughly a dozen little dots shot from her ship, trailed by purple light. The dots curved through the air, each of them colliding with a different enemy and killing it instantly.
“Wow! That’s cool!” said Sweetie Belle. She noticed the icon in the upper left had decreased, now showing a 4 instead of a 5. “Hm. I guess the game wouldn’t be very difficult if I could just do that over and over.” She continued on, trying to conserve her special attacks until she really needed them. She was doing good so far, and hadn’t died again since she got the weapon.
Some sort of orbs, blinking with multiple red lights, floated onto the screen, two lines of them tilted towards each other and leaving just a little space for Sweetie to squeeze through, if there wasn’t an enemy ship in the way. Even if it wasn’t, Sweetie Belle wasn’t entirely confident she could make it through such a tight space, even if that was what the game seemed to have intended.
“Nice try, videogame people. Betcha didn’t think I’d have these babies, did ya?” Sweetie Belle grinned, maneuvered higher on the screen, and fired her homing super attack. All of the missiles pursued the ship, leaving Sweetie Belle to collide with what she learned in that moment to be an anti-spacecraft mine. It killed her instantly.
“Come on! What sort of game has enemies you can’t beat?” To make matters worse, the icon displaying her missile count dropped to zero. Even worse so, Sweetie Belle didn’t notice. It didn’t take long for things to get out of hand, with dozens of ships filling the screen with both themselves and their tiny red projectiles. Sweetie Belle, ignorant to her current predicament, wasn’t particularly worried. She clicked her super attack button when she thought she was out of options.
Nothing happened, and her ship crashed into another, both of them exploding.
“I ran out? I only used it twice! Unless…” Sweetie Belle began to think it out. “Unless I lost it when I died! Oh, that makes sense, I guess…”
So, until she uncovered another power up, she was forced to rely entirely on her own skill and reflexes. It was a miracle she made it to the end of the level.
She drifted forward with no enemies coming for a bit, then was met on screen (flanked by two enemies) by what she could only presume to be the boss of the level. It was some sort of rotating black orb, with three blades, like a claw almost. There was a glowing white orb right in its center, some sort of energy core or something, at least as far as Sweetie Belle could tell. It turned red, which Sweetie took to mean that it was time to shoot it. Down to her last life, she played it safe and decided to watch and see what happened first.
The boss ship fired a volley of shots, five at a time and relatively quickly. Sweetie dodged shot after shot, with surprising speed and skill. She felt rather confident in herself, allowing her to slip into a comfortable rhythm.
Then, she dropped her controller and her ship careened into the big boss ship.
“Dangit!” she exclaimed. Still, it wasn’t all bad. Now, she at least knew how to play, and could probably do it far better. Two more attempts, she wagered, two more shots is all it would take to beat the boss.
Scootaloo stared at her friend with a mix of amusement and fear. She had walked into the room about five minutes ago, and Sweetie Belle had yet to acknowledge her presence. She was, as far as Scootaloo could tell, very much so in the zone. However, as Sweetie Belle was still on the first level of Aegis Wing, and had been for what Scootaloo gathered to be several hours, it was also a bit concerning.
“I’m gonna kick a puppy!” shouted Sweetie Belle, wasting her last life to the same boss.
“You okay there, kiddo?” asked Scootaloo with a smirk. “You seem to be… well, ‘off’ is probably a good word to use.”
“You play games a lot, right?” asked Sweetie Belle, dropping the controller. “Tell me if this has ever happened to you: You do a level, and you get to the end, you make one dumb little mistake, and-"
"You end up messing up in the earlier parts of the level?" offered Scootaloo. "The parts you were doing perfectly?" Sweetie nodded. "Yup. It's what I call 'One More Go' Syndrome."
"I keep telling myself 'I can do it this time', and I keep messing up! And the worst part is-"
"You know exactly how you're messing up, but you just keep doing it. It's so bad." Scootaloo picked up Sweetie's discarded controller. "Aegis Wing, huh? Never played this, but I've heard of it."
"It's really simple," sighed Sweetie. “It’s literally two freaking buttons.”
“Mind if I give it a go?” asked Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle nodded in defeat, curious as to how well Scootaloo could do on a game she’d never played.
She cleared the first mission on her first try.
“What?! How?!” demanded Sweetie Belle. “On your first try? Your first try!”
“Schmups are pretty universal, and, after you play a Bullet Hell or two, this is cake,” explained Scootaloo. “Besides, you’ve come down with One More Go Syndrome. The only cure is to pass the controller.”
Sweetie Belle sighed in annoyance, frustrated at all the time she wasted on the stupid game.
“Okay. New rule, Scoots,” sighed Sweetie. “I’m not allowed to game by myself anymore. I seriously need your help, okay?”
Scootaloo nodded, knowing full well that she shouldn’t have left her alone in the first place, not without any semblance of guidance. But she did have to commend Sweetie on her efforts. She was getting better (relatively, of course), and she seemed to be starting to enjoy herself. Maybe this would move past Button Mash and just become a fun thing for the two to share.
Halloween, the day of darkness and terror, was a holiday that, when one thinks about it, doesn't actually make any sense. What started as a Celtic harvest celebration soon became a way to use humor to confront the fear of death (literally the time of year when people learn to giggle at the ghosties), and then that somehow morphed into a festival of pranks, sweets, and, ironically, scaring the pants off of yourself and others.
Sweetie Belle was a coward. Unlike Applebloom and Scootaloo, she made no effort to deny it. As far as Sweetie was concerned, there was nothing wrong with being a huge wuss, especially for a girl like herself. Fear was what keeps you alive.
Which is another reason Halloween is such an odd occurrence; it celebrates fear. Fear, the only negative emotion that people not only seek out, but willingly pay for. Fear, a necessary and well-evolved human defense against danger, was also one of humanity's favorite pastimes. For whatever reason, people just enjoyed being frightened.
Well, except for Sweetie Belle.
She was not a fan of being scared. So little did she enjoy spookiness, she had to cut herself away from YouTube for the entire month of October, for fear of catching a glimpse of a trailer for whatever new horror film was being released. October put Sweetie on high alert. She was constantly on guard, prepared to be scared by her dear friends. It's funny how constant vigilance can't protect you from yourself. All the guarding and preparation amounts to nothing if you willingly walk into the trap.
Just like Sweetie Belle did.
Not that you could blame her. Applebloom had made it sound so appealing. And, seeing as she had been grounded for several months now, Sweetie felt she had to hang out with her friend on Halloween. On top of that, Scootaloo went out and bought a game that she wanted Sweetie to play. It was actually more like a movie than a game in a lot of ways. The controls were very simple, and the game basically told her what to do whenever she needed to do it. All she really had to do was make choices and enjoy the story. The plan was for Sweetie Belle and Applebloom to stay the night at Scootaloo’s place, where they had Applebloom’s PlayStation 4 set up in the basement, and, with Sweetie at the helm, they would try their hardest to emulate the concept of the game, and survive the night. It was all very simple, and Sweetie most certainly understood why the game was called what it was called.
Until Dawn.
“Alright, alright, alright!” cheered Scootaloo when she opened her door. Sweetie Belle was standing in her doorframe, holding a large grocery bag in each hand. Scootaloo grinned and took one of the bags from her. “Come on, AB’s in the basement.”
“Basement?” asked Sweetie, stepping into Scootaloo’s dark mudroom. “Uh, Scootaloo? I’m a little worried about the stuff you sent me out to get.”
“What do you mean? You had trouble finding it?” Scootaloo closed the door and led Sweetie through the hall.
“No, I found everything just fine.” Sweetie could hardly see anything with all the lights out, but she could make out the shadowy figure of Scootaloo opening a door that seemed to lead down.
“Then what’s the issue?” asked Scootaloo. Her voice seemed to be receding downwards, and Sweetie carefully followed suite.
“Okay, I get the chips, pop, and candy,” said Sweetie, gently and gingerly stepping down the near-invisible steps. “What’s the deal with the lighters?”
“Ambience,” answered Scoots vaguely. “Come on, Sweetie, I thought you’d of all people would understand.”
The two were approaching a dim light, one that Sweetie Belle was very eager to get to. She was already starting to regret this.
“Uh-huh. The habaneros?”
“If I told you that, it’d ruin the fun.”
“And the crucifix?” asked Sweetie Belle. In the dim mid-light, Sweetie could see her friend turn and grin at her toothly.
“Just in case,” she said ominously. “Wow, you got the cross, too? Didn’t think you’d be able to find one so easily. What’s it made of?”
“Gold. I borrowed it from my Nana, so I’d appreciate it if we were careful with it,” said Sweetie Belle. They were nearly to the clearing now, so it was no trouble to see Scootaloo nod. They delivered the “groceries” through, and Sweetie Belle took a good look around.
Sweetie had never actually been in Scootaloo’s basement before, but it still felt familiar somehow. It seemed that Scootaloo had converted the place into a man-cave of sorts: sports posters covered the wall, particularly MMA posters (Scootaloo seemed to be a fan of a woman named Ronda Rousey). Besides the posters, there wasn’t much else besides a decent-sized couch, a mini fridge, a pantry area for snacks, and a massive, flat screen television. Sweetie could see Applebloom’s bow poking up over the back of the couch, indicating that she was slouched out on the couch.
“Applebloom, you’re gonna ruin your back like that,” said Sweetie Belle. She took a step forward and set her bag down onto the ground. “I keep telling you, posture is-” Sweetie felt two hands grasp her shoulders sharply.
“BOO!”
Sweetie Belle shrieked and jumped in fear, while Scootaloo and Applebloom just laughed. Applebloom lifted Sweetie’s discarded cargo and carried it to the couch, Scootaloo following behind.
“Howdy, Sweetie Belle,” chuckled Applebloom. “Ah swear, yer gettin easier an easier to scare.” She grabbed her bow from the couch and reattached it to her head. “What’re we gonna do with this one, Scoots? ‘Fraid of her own shadow.”
“You guys know how I feel about Halloween,” grumbled Sweetie Belle. She threw herself on the couch next to Applebloom, while Scootaloo walked around the basement to get everything in order.
“Trust me, Sweetie, we definitely know,” said Scootaloo. “Bloom, remember the time she got us kicked out of that haunted house?”
“Sure do. We still banned, ain’t we?” asked Applebloom. “Wouldn’t have believed it, if’n hadn’t seen it mahself. Gave tha poor guy a concussion!”
“He had a chainsaw!” squealed Sweetie Belle.
“With a rubber blade.”
“How was I supposed to know?!”
“Maybe cause it was bright orange?” tried Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle crossed her arms and turned her chin up in disgust, a practice she had emulated from her big sister.
“I don’t care what you say. I still think I was being brave,” said Sweetie. “I thought it was a real chainsaw, and I fought him off anyway!”
“Sweetie, chucking yer sneakers while shoutin ‘please don’t hurt me’ ain’t exactly fightin em off,” said Applebloom.
“Look, can we just move on?” asked Sweetie Belle in annoyance. “At least explain what all this stuff is for.”
Scootaloo made quick work of unpacking all the supplies needed for the night: chips, cookies, brownies, soda, M&M’s, Skittles, Snickers, Reese's, and other assorted candies. A perfect storm of processed junk foods that Rarity refused to let in the house, let alone allow Sweetie to eat any. A cheat day if she ever saw one.
That was in only one of the bags.
“Uh… Scootaloo?” Applebloom poked around the bag in confusion. “Ah get tha peppers, an’ tha milk, an’ even the cross, but what’s up with the fryin pan, hammer, spray-deodorant, an’... one, two, three, four… eleven lighters?”
“Just in case, you know?” said Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle definitely did not know but, for obvious reasons, she kept it to herself.
“So, here’s the deal. We have forty-ish habanero peppers,” explained Scootaloo. She whipped out her phone to read off some notes. “These babies are 350,000 on the Scoville Scale.”
“Ah don’t speak Russian or German or whatever tha heck this is,” said Applebloom. “English, if’n ya don’t mind.”
“The Scoville Scale is a way of determining how spicy a pepper is,” explained Sweetie.
“Uh-huh. An’ 350K is a lot?”
“Well, jalapenos are only one thousand,” said Scootaloo. “So, yeah. Pretty damn spicy, I think.”
“Why did you have me buy some?” asked Sweetie. Scootaloo grinned evilly.
“None of us have seen anything about this game, right?” asked Scootaloo. Her friends nodded. “Good. This game is kinda scary, okay? So, for fun, I thought we’d play a game within the game. Every time you get spooked, you have to eat a pepper. The whole thing, seeds and all.”
Sweetie Belle didn’t really believe in demons (besides Sunset Shimmer, Crystal Prep Twilight, and Diamond Tiara). However, that plan was evil to a demonic extreme, and Sweetie Belle wasn’t altogether fond of it.
"That's dumb. Let’s do it!” cheered Applebloom.
"This is a bad idea," noted Sweetie. “Do we really have to?”
“Come on, it’ll be fun!” said Scootaloo. “Oh, and I forgot to mention: If there’s a scare that doesn’t get’cha, you get a fistful of candy. Or a nice tall glass of milk, depending on your preference.”
“Can someone tell me what this game is about?” demanded Sweetie. “I’m not gonna let this be like that time in sixth grade, when we watched that super scary movie cause you guys tricked me!”
“Sweetie Belle, we watched Ghostbusters that year,” said Scootaloo.
“Seventh grade, then!” The girls thought about it for a bit.
“Tha Princess an’ tha Frog?” asked Applebloom in wonder.
Sweetie Belle was, understandably, getting annoyed. Her inability to remember the year was causing her to look equally scared and stupid. Even though she was fine with being thought a huge wuss, her friend’s needling did get under her skin a little.
“Whenever it was we watched Sinister!” grumbled Sweetie. “That movie was scary… Look, will you just explain to me what it’s about?”
“Like we said, we’ve never played it,” said Scootaloo. “But, from what I’ve heard, it’s just Horror Movie: The Game.” Applebloom shook her head.
“She’s been sayin that all week, an’ Ah still haven’t the darndest clue what that means,” said Applebloom. “Still, Ah’ve been hankerin to play this fer ages. Didn’t think Ah’d be able to afford it fer another week or two.”
“How’d you get it?” asked Sweetie. Applebloom pointed to Scootaloo, who was going around the room, lighting several candles that seemed to have come straight from Victorian England, some of them even complete with silver candlesticks.
“I bought it from a guy at a yard sale,” said Scootaloo. “He seemed really eager to get rid of it. Something about a curse or something.” She cackled sinisterly, then slammed her hand against some unseen switch.
The lights cut out, clouding the room with darkness. The only light in the room came from the TV and candles, which gave the room an ominousness that made Sweetie’s skin crawl. Scootaloo flopped onto the couch next to Sweetie Bell, then passed the controller to her.
“Let’s get it cracking,” said Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle reluctantly accepted the gamepad, and prepared to play the game. By the time she got to the startup menu, there was already an issue.
“Turn them subtitles on,” requested Applebloom.
“Why?” asked Scootaloo. “It’s not like you can read em.”
“What’chu tryin to say?”
“I’m trying to say that you’re dumb,” said Scootaloo with a shrug. Applebloom reached across Sweetie and socked Scootaloo in the arm. “Ow! Geez, girl, what’re your fists made of, iron?”
“I’ll just start the game,” said Sweetie meekly. She pressed the New Game option, and they were greeted by a shaky screen displaying some sort of butterfly, the title “The Butterfly Effect”, and a description of what it was.
“That movie was decent,” said Scootaloo nonchalantly, in reference to The Butterfly Effect.
“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense,” said Sweetie Belle. “How can one butterfly cause a hurricane? That’s not how that works.”
“Ah think it’s a metaphor,” suggested Applebloom. Sweetie nodded, and they fell quiet for a bit. After trudging through the opening explanation of how the game worked, they were shown a camera pan through a lightly snowing forest, and a cabin in the clearing.The camera moved through the woods and the house, allowing the girls to catch a glimpse at a girl. The camera zoomed back out, and a cloaked figure with a machete crept into the scene for a moment before cutting back into the cabin.
Sweetie Belle was already a bit jittery.
There were three girls and a guy standing near what appeared to be a kitchen area. From what Sweetie gathered, two of the girls, Jessica and Emily were plotting some sort of prank on their unseen friend, while one of them, Sam, was trying to talk them out of it. If Jessica and Emily were just a little less nasty sounding, Sweetie Belle might’ve mistook the characters for her and the others.
While the girls, and the guy (his name was Mike) were luring poor Hannah into their trap, much like how Applebloom and Scootaloo lured Sweetie, they caught another glimpse of that coated figure, this time holding a gun of some sorts as he menacingly gazed at the house. He had some sort of gas tank on his back, only visible when he turned for a slight moment.
“Oh, so I’m playing as Beth?” said Sweetie Belle questioningly. She was in a kitchen, where two guys, seemingly about the same age as the others, were passed out at the counter. Slowly, Sweetie Belle worked out the fact that Beth, Hannah, and one of the sleeping teens were siblings. As soon as she figured that out, it cut back to the prank on Hannah.
“Oh, that’s mean,” said Sweetie Belle. Hannah was vulnerable, finally alone with the boy she liked, and her so-called friends were humiliating her. In a fit of embarrassment, Hannah ran out of the cabin and into the biting cold winds of the forest. The pranksters tried to stop her, with Emily declaring that Hannah just couldn’t take a joke, and that it was “just a prank, Han!”
“Okay, so does this Emily chick remind you guys of anyone?” asked Scootaloo.
“Mh-hm,” grunted Applebloom.
“Yup,” agreed Sweetie.
“Kill her if you get the chance,” suggested Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle wanted to argue how mean and uncalled for that was. But, after thinking about it for a bit, she decided that it was just a game, and that Emily would probably do something else to earn her fate.
“Well, this is a bad idea,” said Applebloom, as Beth ran out in search of her sister. Sweetie succeeded in what she would later learn was her first QTE (quick-time event), and managed to leap over a fallen branch. She ran to a point where she had two options: a route that was safe and a route that was quick. She chose the safe route, and Beth hurried down a flight of rather haphazard stairs.
“Congrats, Sweetie, you just killed Hannah,” said Scootaloo. “Everyone knows that you never play it safe in a situation like this. Reckless speed is the only way to go.”
“I’m ignoring you,” said Sweetie Belle. She was met with another choice a few moments later, and she chose to follow a strange noise rather than a set of footprints. Then, another choice, where Sweetie decided to follow the footsteps over a creepy shadow in the woods.
“These are a lot of choices,” said Sweetie Belle uneasily. It was easy to be overwhelmed, especially when you were nervously expectant of scares and the penalties that come with it.
“Hey, what’s that?” Applebloom pointed to a glowing icon on the floor. Sweetie Belle walked over to it and picked it up. It was some sort of totem. Her character turned it over, and had a vision of some sort. Hannah falling from a great height and smacking into a rock, dying instantly, with what appeared to be Beth falling behind her.
“Death Totem?!” demanded all three girls. Soon, they all discovered that the Totems were scattered around the game, each giving them a glimpse of a potential future. Some marked good fortune, while others, like the one Sweetie just found, were omens of death.
Sweetie moved on, though she questioned her character’s motives by the second burst of fire. Seriously, if it were Sweetie and Rarity, Sweetie would’ve ran as soon as she saw the flames erupt from nowhere, call the cops, and pray for her sister’s safety. Beth was a braver girl than Sweetie.
But not brave enough to stand her ground when an apparent monster was nearby.
“She dropped her phone,” noticed Sweetie Belle as Hannah and Beth ran from the nothing that had spooked them.
“How observant,” said Scootaloo dryly.
The girls were backed up against a cliff, holding hands to give each other the strength and support necessary to refrain from fainting. The thing that was chasing them, which now appeared to be human in nature, slowly began to advance. The Crusaders saw from his perspective, which, for whatever reason, was through a thermal camera. As their pursuer stepped closer, Hannah backstepped, sending herself and her sister off the cliff. Luckily, Beth managed to clasp onto a root and keep the two girls up. The man chasing them made it to the drop and offered his hand, and Sweetie had yet another choice to make.
“What’re you gonna do, Sweetie?” asked Applebloom as time ticked away. “It ain’t pretty either way.”
Rather than save herself, Sweetie chose to let go, and send both Hannah and Beth plummeting to their deaths. Beth hit her back on a large stone with a sickening crack, and the two tumbled down into a chasm or trench, their bodies laying lifelessly. Hannah’s fallen bodied rolled forward and landed with her dead, lifeless eyes beaming directly at the camera. Sweetie Belle let out an involuntary squeak, which brought a grin to Scootaloo’s face.
“That’s a pepper,” she said, handing Sweetie the jar.
“B-but… Oh, whatever!” Sweetie Belle popped open the jar, removed a pepper, and stuck it in between her teeth. She pulled out the stem and chewed the thing as quickly as she could before swallowing.
This was a mistake.
Suddenly, they were in a therapist’s office, where a rather creepy doctor was lecturing his patient about things outside of their control and finding a way to work through the spookiness. The doctor, Doctor Hill, asked his patient (whose identity couldn’t be determined as of yet) a few questions regarding a picture of a barn and a creepy scarecrow. Sweetie answered them as honestly as possible, which resulted in the expected reaction.
Scootaloo and Applebloom called her a huge wuss.
The game was becoming less and less fun as time went on. By this point, they had been playing for several hours, and Sweetie had ingested several habanero peppers. Most of the times she got spooked, it wasn’t even all that scary, rather, she was nervous from having eaten so many peppers. It was a vicious cycle. It also seemed to have impacted her decision making.
They were near the endgame, and Sweetie was significantly less good-natured and pure in her decisions than she would be ordinarily. Though it did take her a bit to decide to “kill” Josh in order to save Ashley when she played as Chris, she slowly lost her conscious. If it weren’t for her dropping the controller, she would’ve killed Ashley in a later choice in order to save herself as Chris, and she made the choice to leave Emily for dead rather easily when playing as her boyfriend, Matt. Scootaloo and Applebloom were as surprised as they were entertained by the sudden change in style.
However, when her tongue had gotten used to the burning agony, she began to soften. As much as she really wanted to, she couldn’t let Mike shoot Emily on the off-chance that the monsters of the game (Wendigos) operated on a principle like that of zombie bites. She later found out that they did not, which made her feel better about her choice (until she found out that her choosing not to shoot Emily put Ashley in danger in the final sequence). On top of that, she managed to save everybody (although, given Josh’s fate, save was a rather giving term).
“My mouth is on fire and Josh just killed some poor guys,” grumbled Sweetie as the credits began to roll. “But, I guess this game was pretty good.”
“I can’t believe you finished off all the habaneros,” said Scootaloo. “I didn’t even know there were that many scares in the game.”
“An’ you got the good ending, first try,” nodded Applebloom approvingly. “Not too shabby.”
“This wasn’t fun,” grumbled Sweetie Belle, though she did enjoy it a little bit. “I’m going home. What time is it?” Scootaloo glanced at her phone.
“5 AM.”
“See you tomorrow.” Sweetie Belle swept up the remains of the supplies she had brought for the night, and heaved them over her shoulder. Without another word to her friends, she stomped up the stairs and let herself out of the house and onto the street. Sweetie’s house wasn’t all that far away, and she probably could’ve made it there in around five minutes.
A hand grasped her shoulder, and any semblance of courage she had vanished. In one quick move, she shut her eyes, wrenched out that strange frying pan from the bag (letting its contents spill on the floor) and swung blindly around her.
“Stay away, Josh!” she screamed.
“Whoa! Hey! Calm down!” Sweetie’s face blushed with embarrassment, because she knew that voice. She knew it fairly well. He was, technically, the reason she felt like she had just French kissed the sun.
“Button?” she asked, not daring to open her eyes.
“Yeah…? And you’re Sweetie Belle, right?” asked Button nervously. Sweetie opened up when her fears were confirmed. There he was: lanky, scrawny, and wearing that dumb yet adorable propeller hat. “You okay?”
“I’m tired, and scared, and I kinda wanna kick someone’s butt right now,” grumbled Sweetie. She shrugged slightly. “So, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about almost taking your head off like that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to girls hitting me with random objects,” said Button with a grin. Then, he thought about what he just said. “Eh… Probably shouldn’t be bragging about that.”
Sweetie Belle giggled slightly, which was more than enough for Button Mash. Self-deprecating humor seemed to be the way to go.
“What’re you doing out this late?” asked Sweetie. “Er… Early?”
“Oh, I was just over to Scootaloo’s so I could get my copy of Until Dawn back,” said Button. “I still haven’t finished it, and she asked if she could borrow it for Halloween.”
“Wait, that was your copy? I just finished it.”
Button’s jaw just about hit the concrete.
“You play video games?!” he asked in absolute shock. Sweetie nodded. “B-b-but how?! Why?! You’re a girl, girls don’t play video games.”
“What, so I don’t get to play just because I’m a girl?” asked Sweetie Belle in mock-disapproval.
“I never said girls can’t play. I said they don’t,” said Button, though he did notice that Sweetie was at least mostly joking. “It’s cool that you do. We have to game together sometime.”
In a flash, Sweetie Belle yanked out a pen and a small piece of paper (she had been preparing this for ages now), scribbled out her phone number, and passed it to Button.
“Call me,” she said. She scooped up her fallen wares and set back off in the direction of home. Button, who had just gotten his first phone number from his first real, live, actual girl, was, understandably, a bit shocked. It took him several seconds to realize what just transpired.
“Uh… You need help with that bag?” he called to Sweetie, who was now down the block.
“You can help by calling me!” she answered.
She grinned at her own smoothness, and continued on her way. When she was sure that Button was gone and could no longer hear her, she calmly reached into her phone, dialed a number, and brought it to her ear. The phone rang for a few seconds before picking up.
Sweetie Belle stood before the rows of games, straining her brain to make a decision. Her local GameStop was running a Four for Ten promotion, in which a list of eligible games was posted. Sweetie Belle could pick any of these four games, for ten bucks collectively. Four pre-owned games for a sixth of the price of a brand new one. Sweetie wasn’t an expert mathematician, but she was sure that was a good deal.
The deal was made even better when Scootaloo offered to go half in on a headset microphone for Sweetie’s gaming, under the express stipulation that Scootaloo picks out the model. True to what she had feared, Sweetie went straight for the one-eared, wireless Afterglows, which she was immediately scolded for. Scootaloo vowed that Sweetie would get a sturdy, quality mic. She found a nice pair of Trittons, which were also on sale, and nodded with satisfaction. Now, all that was left was selecting games.
The first one didn’t take long. All Sweetie Belle had to do was read its name out loud in the store and every employee, shopper, and passerby rushed up to her and wholeheartedly recommended it. So, with the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, tucked under her arm, she went about selecting the other three.
Her next choice, a game she couldn’t understand if she tried, was a Japanese action game called Bayonetta. Sweetie Belle had no clue what was up with this one, but she thought the lady on the cover was pretty, so how bad could it be? Plus, high-heel handguns are considered universally cool, so the choice was more or less made for Sweetie Belle.
This is when it started to get difficult.
“Hey, Sweetie, how about this?” suggested Scootaloo, pointing to the list of eligible games. Her finger found a game titled “DmC: Devil May Cry”. “I really liked this game.”
“DmC? Isn’t that a rock band or something?” asked Sweetie.
“That’s Run DMC, and it’s a rap group. Not the same thing,” explained Scootaloo.
“Oh. What does DmC stand for? The game, I mean.”
“Devil May Cry.” Sweetie tilted her head in confusion.
“DmC stands for Devil May Cry?” she asked. Scootaloo nodded. “So this game is called Devil May Cry: Devil May Cry?” Again, Scootaloo nodded. “That’s SSC: Some Stupid Crap.”
“Yeah, I guess so. It’s to differentiate it from the other games in the series,” said Scootaloo. “None of the original fans really like this one, but I think it’s fun.”
“Sorry, ladies, we’re all out of DmC copies,” said the cashier that was aiding the two.
“Alright, how about Inversion?” suggested Scootaloo.
“Fresh out, sorry.”
“Wolfenstein?”
“Nope.”
“FF XIII?”
“I just sold the last copy, actually.”
“Alright, stop me when we hit something we can actually buy,” said Scootaloo. She peered at the list. “Arkham City, Brutal Legend, Darksiders, F.E.A.R, Halo.” The guy continuously shook his head. “Seriously? Is there anything you guys do have?”
“Uh… We have SoulCal IV,” he said.
“SoulCal?” asked Sweetie.
“Soul Caliber. It’s a fighting game. Not my cup of tea, but you might like it,” said Scootaloo. “Alright, Skyrim, Bayo, SoulCal, and… What? FIFA? Forza?”
“We have Borderlands 2 Game of the Year edition,” suggested the cashier. “That’s a really good one.”
Scootaloo’s eyes widened in shock. She all but dropped her cash in excitement.
“Yup, we’ll take it!” she said excitedly. “Dude, Borderlands 2 is one of my favorites! I play it with RD all the time.”
“Cool, okay. We’re ready then, right?” asked Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo nodded, and the two went on their way to counter. When they got there, they encountered an obvious problem.
“I can’t sell you these games,” said the cashier. “Most of them are rated M. You’re going to need someone over 17 to buy these for you.”
“Crap! I can’t believe I forgot…” groaned Scootaloo. “Well, I can call my dad… He won’t be happy about having to drive all the way out here, though…” Just as Scootaloo raised her phone to make the daunting phone call, the doors opened, and in stepped the unsung hero. Scootaloo was convinced that she had done something to earn herself a guardian angel.
“I thought I recognized that scooter outside,” said Rainbow Dash. “Sup, Squirt? Sweetie?”
“Thank God you’re here! We need your help,” said Scootaloo. “I’m kinda dumb, and I forgot that I can’t buy M rated games yet. Can you help me out here?”
“Sure,” said Dash with a shrug. She took the money from Sweetie and Scootaloo, then slammed it on the table.
“I’m gonna need to see some ID,” said the cashier. As luck would so have it, Rainbow Dash had just turned 17 a week and a half before. All she had to do was reach into her wallet and withdraw her ID.
Her pockets were empty.
“Gah! I left them in my other shorts!” groaned Rainbow. “This is all Applejack’s fault, she spilled a whole bunch of soda all over me and I had to change clothes.”
“Well, guess I’ll call my dad, after all. Thanks anyway,” said Scootaloo. She unlocked her phone, which flickered and faded shortly thereafter. “And my phone’s dead. Geez, guess we gotta come back.”
“I have enough copies of Borderlands 2, but I can’t guarantee that Bayo or SoulCal’ll be here when you get back,” warned the cashier. Following the day’s theme of insane feats of luck, the three teens made a mere step before a solution presented itself. This time, in the form of a frenzy, panting Adagio Dazzle.
“Todd! Todd!” she called as she barreled through the door. “Todd, I need a copy of Borderlands 2, right now!”
“Sure thing, Adagio,” said the cashier, apparently named Todd. “Just let me finish up here.” Adagio seemed to only then realize who was also in the store. She calmed herself down a bit, then tried her best to seem like her normal, graceful self.
“Hello, everyone,” said Adagio stiffly. “What brings you here?”
“We were just trying to buy some games for Sweetie,” said Scootaloo. “Oh! You’re a million years old, right?”
“Careful, kid, those are fighting words,” growled the Siren. “I am exactly one thousand seven hundred thirty-six years old, and I do not look a day over a thousand!” She cleared her throat. “Why do you ask?”
“We picked out a bunch of M games, but we’re not old enough to buy them,” explained Sweetie. “Can you help us out?”
“Why not? Todd, add that copy of Borderlands onto… Let’s see here,” Adagio leaned forward to get a good look of what was being bought. “Skyrim, SoulCal, oh, we have to play that sometime, Bayonetta, and… Borderlands 2?”
“Speaking of which, why do you need another copy so bad?” asked Rainbow. Adagio pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.
“I swear, that idiot Aria wants me to kill her in her sleep,” grumbled Adagio. “I was in the middle of an Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode Terramorphus run with some friends, and she comes along and punt kicks my Xbox!” The room gasped in horror. “The console is fine, thankfully, but the disc is laser-burned to Tartarus.”
Todd the cashier put all the items on the counter and scanned them. He bagged them, accepted Adagio’s money, then handed the goods to the Siren gamer. Adagio thanked him, then handed Sweetie Belle her games and headset.
“So, would you care to break those in?” offered Adagio. “Borderlands can be a bit intimidating to a novice gamer.”
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your Terramorphous run,” said Sweetie Belle. “Whatever that means.”
“Oh, they’re all dead by now, anyway. I insist. We can party up, chat a little.” Adagio smirked. “That sounds fun, doesn’t it? Mind you, anything is a good thing if it’s an excuse to block Aria and Sonata out for a couple of hours.”
“Sure, I’m game,” said RD with grin. “What do ya say, Squirt? You in?”
“Duh. I need to try out Axton, anyway,” said Scootaloo, a smile on her face similar to Rainbow. Sweetie Belle shrugged, not thinking of any objections to be made. Besides the risk of her sucking at video games in front of her friends, there was nothing wrong with it.
It was time for Sweetie Belle’s first proper multiplayer experience, and she was equal parts excited and terrified.
As Adagio bustled through her home, likely yelling at Aria and Sonata, Sweetie Belle got the chance to explore a bit. She looked at Rainbows’ Playercard with a bit of respect, awe, and confusion. Some things made perfect sense, but others… Others were a bit harder to explain. Rainbow Dash, known to Xbox Live as XxRayneBooomxX, had apparently been gaming for a fairly long time. The first thing that Sweetie Belle noticed was the horrendous spelling of the name.
“That is not how you spell ‘rain’ or ‘boom’, Rainbow Dash,” noted Sweetie Belle, adjusting her headset slightly. She was still getting used to the sensation of the microphone on her head, but it was starting to feel almost natural.
“Rayne, as in BloodRayne. One of my favorites from back in the day,” explained RD. “And the ‘Boom’ thing is cause two O’s doesn’t even begin to describe the sound I make when I bust into a lobby.”
“I thought you said that was a typo and you didn’t notice until after,” said Scootaloo. Rainbow grumbled, mumbling about traitorous proteges.
“You have a lot of Gamerscore,” said Sweetie. “30,000! That’s crazy. Hm… What are these in this little box?”
“Oh, those are the games I got all the achievements in,” said Dash. “Soak it in. It’s not everyday you see someone that amazing!”
“Hm… Catherine?” said Sweetie questioningly. “What’s this about?”
“It’s weird. Kinda… It’s Japanese, okay. That wasn’t hard to do, though,” said Rainbow. “Check this out! Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, all Achievements, 100%!” Sweetie heard a bit of rustling through the mic, and the sinking of someone into a bed.
“Couldn’t help but overhear,” snickered Adagio. “That’s rather cute, Rainbow. All Achievements in Revengeance is rather impressive, but take a look at my Playercard.” Out of curiosity, Sweetie Belle maneuvered to Adagio’s name (MadamaDagio), and opened up her Playercard.
“Ho. Ly. Crap,” said Scootaloo. “You have all the Achievements for Super Meat Boy? And… XCOM?! Does that game even have an end?!”
“Max Payne, Devil May Cry 4, Fallout 3…” listed Sweetie Belle. “Did you really complete all of these games?”
“All of them, and more,” said Adagio, pouring out pride. “I’ve been gaming for a long, long time, kids. Stick around, and perhaps some of my prowess will rub off on you.”
“Whatever. You done yelling at your roommates, or should I bust out my homework first?” asked Rainbow.
“So impatient, Rainbow Dash,” said Adagio slyly. “I’ve never seen someone so eager to have their shoddy skills exposed.”
“Alright, alright, when you go down, don’t go begging for my help,” said Rainbow. “Who’s hosting?”
“What does that mean?” asked Sweetie.
“She wants to know who is gonna start the game up,” explained Scootaloo. “You should probably host, since this will be your first time through the game.”
“That doesn’t actually matter,” noted Adagio. “But I don’t really care. Sweetie can start if she wants.”
Sweetie Belle nodded, temporarily forgetting that her friends weren’t actually in the room with her. She booted up the game, endured the loading screen and opening logos, then opened up the main menu. Through the guidance of more experienced players, Sweetie managed to send out three invites to her three friends. Soon, the lobby was populated by Sweet n SourB, XxRayneBooomxX, MadamaDagio, and SchmupGodSquirt.
“I just realized something,” said Sweetie Belle. “I didn’t play the first game. What happened?”
“Basically, Borderlands 1 was about four treasure hunters looking for a big box of money and alien weapons called the Vault,” said Scootaloo. “This Guardian Angel chick tells you where to go, what to do, where to find Vault Key Pieces, all that jazz.”
“Meanwhile, you’re being chased by an officer of the Crimson Lance, this private military thing,” added Rainbow. “Commander Steele—”
“Commandant,” corrected Adagio.
“Yeah, whatever, Commander Steele wants the Vault for her company, you defy her the whole game, and right when you’re about to fight her…”
“She opens the Vault and a giant tentacle monster stabs her through the chest,” sighed Adagio. “Frankly, that was quite a disappointing ending. It almost turned me off from the sequel. Thank heavens I gave it a chance.”
“So… I didn’t miss much?” asked Sweetie.
“Oh, no, you missed a whole bunch,” said Scootaloo. “We’ll explain it as we see it.”
With a shrug of the shoulders, Sweetie Belle started the game. After a monologue delivered by some Russian guy that set up the game’s setting and bad guy. Sweetie liked the opening enough, though she thought the name “Handsome Jack” was kind of pigheaded, especially considering how weird his face looked.
The scene shifted to a desert wasteland, where some sort of wild alien dog lay forlorn on the sand. A large truck drove by, wrapping the beast with a chain and dragging it behind it.
“Oh no! That poor puppy!” squealed Sweetie.
“That’s a Skag, and they’re enemies,” said Scootaloo. “Basically everything is an enemy.”
The truck that had dragged the Skag was filled with what appeared to be more enemies, ones that enjoyed fighting each other. Sweetie was confused by their manic, nonsensical behavior, and was about to ask a question when the truck was struck at high speed by a moving train.
“Get wrecked, losers,” chuckled Rainbow. “Man, that scene kills me, every time.”
“Geez, this game is kinda violent, isn’t it?” asked Sweetie. All three of the other players laughed hysterically.
“Oh, if you only knew, Sweetie,” said Adagio.
After a short movie showing off the four playable characters, Sweetie was faced with a menu in which she needed to choose her character. To her surprise, there were six options, as opposed to the four that she had seen before the menu.
“How come only four characters were in the opening?” asked Sweetie.
“Oh, they came out after the game,” said Rainbow. “Squirt, you’re running Ax, right? What about you two?”
“Maya, duh,” said Adagio. “She’s only called The Siren. Do you really think I could resist?”
“Um… How about this girl?” said Sweetie, hovering over to a teenage character with pigtails. “Gaige? Is she cool?”
“She can be, if you get over how weird some of her skills are,” said Rainbow. “Her power is that she can summon a big robot buddy. I’m gonna go ahead and play Zer0 for this run. Gonna try to take this slow.”
With everyone ready, the game commenced.
“Hax!” shouted Gaige.
“For those keeping score at home,” said Scootaloo with a chuckle. She set off to revive Sweetie. “That makes Sweetie's eighth down since we triggered the BNK3R.”
“I know, I know, I suck!” said Sweetie. “I read a bunch of tips on how to play shooters, but none of them seem to be working.”
“In defense of Sweetie, this is a rather difficult boss fight, and Gaige is simultaneously the easiest and hardest character to play,” said Adagio. “Frankly, she should've played Maya. Or Krieg, he is pretty easy as well.” She gunned down a crowd of three Loader bots without much trouble.
“Those tips,” said Dash, pulling off her fifth consecutive headshot. “What were they?”
“Keep moving, lead your shots, stuff like that,” said Sweetie. She deployed her Deathtrap robot and ran for safety. “Oh, and reloading. It said to reload whenever you can.”
Rainbow and Adagio groaned.
“What?! What did I do?” asked Sweetie.
“Did you, perchance, go down the skill tree on the right?” asked Adagio. “The one called ‘Ordered Chaos’?”
“Erm… Yes?”
“Sweetie Belle! Didn’t you read your skills?!” snapped Rainbow.
“I wanted to, but you guys told me to hurry up and leave the inventory!”
“Because we were in the middle of a bitch of a boss fight,” said Scootaloo. Her mother could be heard shouting at her for her language, but Scootaloo ignored her. “What’s that tree? I never played Gaige.”
“That skill tree is all about Anarchy Stacks,” said Adagio. “Every time you kill an enemy or completely empty your magazine, you gain a stack of Anarchy.”
“And for every stack of Anarchy you have, you gain damage and lose accuracy,” continued Rainbow. “Eventually, you’ll be one-shotting Badasses, if you’re lucky enough to hit one.”
“Ooooh!” Sweetie giggled nervously and immediately changed up her strategy. Instead of letting off four or five shots before reloading, Sweetie emptied her gun into any enemy she saw. What followed could be described as an improvement in the most basic of senses. However, those playing would prefer the term “freaking miracle”.
After five minutes, Sweetie stopped dying every time an enemy stood too near her. From there, Sweetie Belle got into a groove of sorts, a decent rhythm of shooting, ducking, tossing grenades, and deploying her Deathtrap. With every kill, her Anarchy rose.
It’s worth noting that, as Gaige gained more Anarchy Stacks, her personality became more and more unstable. The character spoke more wildly, sometimes replacing any sort of meaningful dialogue with giggles and the maniacal declaration that “Everything’s going to die!”. Also worth noting is that it was normal to feel a certain degree of power when playing a video game wherein you could defeat anything essentially by looking in their direction. So it made perfect sense for Sweetie Belle to start feeling confident, perhaps even a bit wild in her own right.
“SMASH THE SYSTEM!” shouted Sweetie Belle. She aimed as carefully as her Anarchy would allow and pulled the trigger, dropping the BNK3R’s health down a considerable chunk.
“You’re getting way into this,” said Scootaloo. “It’s kinda cool, actually. Never seen you go completely nuts like this before.”
“BWAA-HAHAHAHAAA!”
“The BNK3R should be dead soon, eh?” asked Adagio. No sooner did she say this did Sweetie Belle get a lucky shot on the BNK3R, finishing off one of the most difficult bosses in the game. As the BNK3R plummeted to the ground and loot burst from its battered chassis, Sweetie Belle let out a loud, shrill, unimpeded cackle.
A gun tumbled just to Gaige’s feet, with an orange rarity indicator.
“Orange? I’ve never seen orange before,” said Sweetie.
The entire party exploded.
“Legendary! Legendary!” That was the best Sweetie could make out of the mass of shouting. She moved forward, looked down, and investigated the weapon.
“The Bitch?” she said questioningly, for that was the name of the gun. “Why’s it called the Bitch?” Sweetie didn’t much care, because the Bitch had really good stats. Very powerful, very accurate, very fast, and a legendary to boot. She was just about to pick it up when...
In a blink, the TV and Xbox shut themselves down. Sweetie sat, open-mouthed, attempting to keep the sadness from leaking out of her body. Of all the times to have a power outage, now had to be the absolute worst time.
“Sweetie!” Her mother called, sliding into the room. “Sweetie, I hope you weren’t in the middle of anything important, because I may have accidentally shorted out a circuit or something. We should get our power back soon.” She seemed to only then notice her daughter, trembling and almost crying in the dark. “What’s wrong, hon?”
Sweetie Belle wasn’t thinking.
“Mom, you just made me lose my Bitch,” whined Sweetie. Her mother said nothing for a moment, turned on her heel, then walked off.
“Sweetie, you’re grounded,” she said as she left. Sweetie dropped her face onto the floor.
