> New "Reality" > by Scorch215 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: Game On > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stared at the small black rectangle that lay on the floor of Surgercube Corner. Several other ponies that had been having lunch at the baker, including Fluttershy and Rarity had seen the object just appear in mid-air and drop to the floor with a thud. Twilight had been in the middle of talking to her friends about having a picnic the next day as they hadn’t had a chance to really do anything together do to them all being busy the past week, Twilight with her studies, Fluttershy with her animals. Applejack with the farm while Rarity had a huge order of dresses to fil and Pinkie had been busy filling in for Mr. Cake who was in Canterlot to pick up much needed ingredients the bakery was running low on. Rainbow dash had been dealing with three sick members of the whether team sow as pulling double shifts along with everypony else. Today had been the first time either of them had a few minutes to be able to grab a quick lunch together and that had been interrupted by the strange object appearing from no were. Everypony one in the bakery was staring silently at the object that had interrupted a peaceful day. Slowly Twilight pushed herself away from the table and started to walk up to the odd rectangle. “Darling are you sure that’s a good idea?” Rarity asked from her seat as she watched her purple friend “Well it doesn’t seem to be doing anything so I’m sure it’s safe.” Twilight said. “It looks like some sort of stone.” As Twilight neared the black “stone” her theory was quickly dashed as the part that was face up turned on and glowed with a light of its own causing the unicorn to jump back. When she jumped back the object became inert again. Blinking a few times and with her curiosity doubled now the purple mare stepped forward again. As before the object lite up but this time Twilight was ready for it so did not jump away. She got closes enough to see what the light was. It appeared to be some sort of screen that had head shot of Twilight herself staring out with a neutral expression standing in front of a white back ground with black horizontal bars. Twilight very carefully picked up the object in her magi and took a closer look. As she brought it close to her words appeared on the screen. Would you like to join? Yes No Blinking several times Twilight looked back at her friends who were all looking at it and her curiously. Looking back at the object Twilight gently pushed “YES” with a hoof. The words vanished and a spinning gray circle too their place. Blinking Twilight looked back at her friends; she opened her mouth to speak when the bakery, her friends and everything vanished. Her view was filled with Ponyville from above jumping away from her in several flashes, the entire time the spinning grey circle in the corner of her vision. Twilight tried to move, to yell for help, reach for her magic, to do anything! But she couldn’t, she was comply immobilized and could only watched as she suddenly zoomed away from Ponyville, over the fields outside of town and then her view was blocked by heavy cloud cover. The clouds were only there for a short time before she saw tall buildings jutting from the clouds and her movement stopped. Twilight wondered what was going to happen next when she saw the same series of flashes as before but this time she was going down with each flash. Down through the clouds she saw a city street with odd carriages on the street and weird creatures on the side walk. She zoomed down to the side walk and when she blinked she found herself mid-step on the sidewalk as if she had been walking down it. Twilight blinked several times before slowly looking at her surroundings. The first thing she noticed were the creatures walking around her, paying her no real mind. The creatures were bipedal, no fur except on top of their heads and wore varying styles of clothing and were much taller than her. They kind of looked like hairless apes to the confused unicorn. Cautiously Twilight approached one of the creatures that seemed to be speaking into the same type of black rectangle that had appeared in Surgercube Corner. “Um…excuse me, can you help me?” The creature looked at her with annoyance. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Freaking tourists.” The creature said in a voice that was clearly male before going back to his conversation with the rectangle. “Huh? No not you, just some lost tourist, don’t worry about it dear.” The creature walked on leaving a confused Twilight behind. The creature didn’t seem to care that Twilight didn’t look like the rest of them and only cared that she had interrupted his conversation. His attitude reminded her of some of the times she had visited Manehatten. Twilight jumped when she heard what sounded like a distant explosion and a few second alter what sounded like a siren wailing. She looked towards it as did some of the other creatures as the siren got closer and closer. Suddenly one of the self-propelled carriages skidded around the corner and Twilight blinked as it was going much faster than the other carriages on the road. Twilight watched as two black and white carriages skidded around the corner with flashing red and blue lights on top and from what she could tell the siren was coming from them. Twilight jumped again as several bangs came from the speeding carriage and she saw sparks fly off the front of the black and white carriages and the front window crack as something struck it. This loud noise seemed to have frightened the bipedal creatures as they all started to scream and run away from the street and the other carriages on the road began to move out of the way as fast as they could. And then just as suddenly as they appeared the carriages sped past and were gone and Twilight stood alone on the side walk. Blinking and looking around at the empty sidewalk and street she wasn’t sure what to do or what was going on anymore. Her best chance would be getting some help but if this place was like Manehatten then that could be difficult. She began to walk down the side walked and stopped as something brushed her fur, looking back at herself she saw she was wearing some sort of black jacket with a hood, when did that get on her? Deciding to investigate the jacket she sat on her haunches and began to go through the pockets. She slipped a hoof into the left pocket and felt a metallic object and when she pulled it out she was holding a silver L shaped object, tilting it several directions she couldn’t figure out what it was or what it was for so she put it back in her pocket and moved onto the other one. As she felt around in the other pocket her hoof brushed something small and upon pulling it out she saw it was the black rectangle that had brought her here. Glaring with annoyance at the object she saw the screen was on and showed a bunch of small icons. Cocking an eye brow at the icons she clicked one that said MAP, least she could get an idea of where she was. The icon expanded to show a small square of an area with a flashing arrow in the middle of it and a plus and minus symbol on the side. Blinking once more, she seemed to be doing that a lot since this all began, she looked at the crisscrossing streets around the arrow. After a bit of investigating by simply turning to face other direction and the arrow moving to match she figured out the arrow represented her, somehow the map could know exactly where she was and where she was facing so that would make navigating easier. She tapped the minus symbol and the map zoomed out a bit, after a few more tap she could see the entirety of what she assumed was the city she was in. The first thing that caught her eye was the name in the corner of the expanded map. “Where the heck is Los Santos?” She said to herself. The second thing to catch her attention was that there were several White Dots on the map and one Dark Red Dot with a number two on it that looked like it was heading towards her with a White Dot coming from another direction. Both dots were approaching fast from side streets and Twilight wasn’t sure what to do. On one hoof she had no clue what the dots meant, on the other hoof dark red didn’t exactly say friendly though for all she knew white didn’t either. Though with how fast they were approaching her arrow she was about to find out. The Red Dot arrived first; one of the self-propelled carriages skidded around the corner and came to a stop in the middle of the street. Now that it wasn’t moving Twilight could see two of the bipedal creatures sitting in it, one of which was behind some sort of wheel. The two bipeds stared at her for a bit and Twilight put on her friendliest smile and waved to them, at least these two seemed to acknowledge her existence. The two bipeds blinked and then raised two metal objects and pointed them at her. Twilight had a distinct feeling something back was about the happen but before anything did happen another carriage slammed into the other one. Twilight dropped to the ground as she heard rabid bangs like when the other fleeing carriage had drove by and the window in the front of the first biped’s cars exploded in a shower of glass as their bodies jerked before slumping over. The carriage that slammed into the first backed up and moved over to where Twilight laid on the ground. It was large and painted dark blue with a single white stripe going down the middle of it and dark window. “Get in quick before they come back.” A voice said from the carriage. Blinking Twilight could only stare at the carriage that spoke to her in a female voice. “Come on I’m not going to hurt you, heck I just saved your ass from getting wasted so come on before those PKs come back.” Twilight nodded, she didn’t know what a PK was but getting wasted didn’t sound good. Somehow she knew to go around to the other side of the carriage and looking at the door she knew to use her magic to pull the handle. The door came open easily and inside behind another wheel biped behind the wheel , this one had black pulled back into a ponytail and was wearing a grey jacket, grey pants and boots, over the biped eyes were a pair silver reflective sunglasses and Twilight had the distinct impression it was a female based on the curves of the body. Twilight quickly climbed in and pull the door shut behind her, she had just a moment to settler herself into the passenger seat before the female biped pushed the peddle to the floor and the carriage zoomed away. As they drove by an intersection Twilight saw another biped raise pink metal object and she yelped the back window exploded inward as she could heard things rabidly striking the outside of the car as the pink metal object spat out fire. The biped behind the wheel jerked the wheel to the right and the carriage skidded onto a side street and they zoomed away. Twilight heart was threating to thunder out of her chest as the wind whipped through the destroyed windows of the carriage as they flew down the street at high speed, weaving between other slower carriages. “Well that was fun.” The female chuckled as she took another sharp turn, putting as much distance as she can between them and the other bipeds. “Fun? You call that fun? What the buck is going on!?” Twilight shouted back looking at the biped who didn’t look at the terrified unicorn in the passenger seat. “Well yeah it’s fun screwing with PKs and saving their prey.” The female replied with a laugh. “PKs? What’s a PK?” Twilight asked her curiosity defeating her fear. “Player Killers, they are players who get a kick out of hunting down other players and killing them whether they want to play that way or not, a lot of them think its fun to take out level one noobs such as yourself.” The female replied. Twilight blinked, those bipeds where there to kill her just because she was there and what was a Noob? And what did the biped mean she was level one? Before Twilight could ask the biped spoke again. “So I’m guessing you are way new to this game if you just stood there while a couple of Red Players came at you huh?” “Um…yeah I just got here not long ago.” Twilight said and the biped nodded. “Well lucky you then you ended up on the same server as me otherwise those assholes would have spent the next hour or so killing you over and over again.” She said. “You can call me Mar by the way.” “Um...I’m Twilight Sparkle” Twilight said looking at Mar as she drove the carriage. “Well nice to meet you Twilight, honestly I’m surprised that you’d hack a game you know nothing about.” Mar said. “Hack? Game?” Twilight said dumbfounded. “Yes it’s kinda obvious that’s a hacked character, purple unicorns aren’t exactly something you can get in character creation.” Mar said chuckling and Twilight open her mouth to ask what she was talking about but Mar continued on. “But hey if you want to be a unicorn then who am I to judge, as long as the hack is purely cosmetic and doesn’t give you an advantage over us other players then I got no problem with it.” “Uh….yeah…it’s just how I look.” Twilight said blinking once more, she was beginning to wonder how many time she was going to blink like this today. Mar nodded. “Yeah I figured by how scared you were when the shooting started, if you had a Godmode hack you’d have just sat there like a lump.” Twilight watched as Mar looked behind them. “Well then, looks like our friends still want to play it seems.” Mar said with a smile. Twilight blinked and looked behind them and saw the PKs care speeding down the road after them and closing fast. “Let’s see, a level fifty-seven and fifty-eight vs and level ninety-seven and level one, wonder who will win?” With another chuckled a small black brick appeared in Mar’s hand and she put her hand out the window and dropped the brick, another one appearing in her hand instantly. “This should be good.” She said and Twilight looked back just in time to see the road explode under the Player Killers car and send it into the air a second before it exploded as well. “Ha! And that should teach them not to fuck with The Firm.” Mar said with a chuckle of amusement. Twilight stared at the female biped with wide eyes. “You just killed them, how…why?” She sputtered. “Well yeah they were going to try and kill us, why else do you think they were chasing us? As for how, I just dropped a Sticky Bomb in the road and timed when to detonate it.” Mar said Twilight just stared at her. “Man do you have a lot to learn about this game, just stick with me and I’ll keep you safe show you how not to die so much.” Twilight slumped down in the seat. While she was thankful to Mar for saving her, she was also concerned about the fact she just killed two living creature without showing any remorse in the slightest. “By Celestia what’s wrong with this place and how do I get home…” She mumbled to herself as they drove down the road deeper into the city of Los Santos. > Chapter 2: Tutorial > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight watched the city race by as Mar drove through the city. It had been a bit since the PKs had showed up but then it’s hard to show up when you are dead. Twilight couldn’t believe that the biped could take a life so easily and not show any issues. While Twilight was thankful to Mar for saving her she couldn’t get over the fact her new friend was a killer. Twilight blinked, did she really just think of the biped as a friend despite what she had seen her do and only known her for all of twenty minutes? Twilight looked over the women behind the wheel. She honestly wasn’t sure what she thought about her as she watched her turn the wheel and worked the peddles. IT wasn’t hard for her to figure out how to work the carriage by watching. “Well here we are. “Mar suddenly said and Twilight looked out the window at a tall brown skyscraper across the street from a construction site. Mar turned the car into a small roadway that went down to a garage door that opened when the car got near it. As the car drove into the door Twilight blinked and suddenly the carriage was sitting in a large white room filled with other carriages. Twilight looked around trying to figure out how they were suddenly in the room so fast and parked in the blink of an eye. Sighing she climbed out of car when Mar did and closed the door. It was then that she noticed the car was completely repaired as well. This place made less and less sense the longer she was here. “Well welcome to my Garage Twilight, home of the cars I use the most.” Mar said proudly and Twilight looked around the room. There was a large box shaped car painted black with red trip and a fin on the back. A smaller box shaped one that was grey, a nearly flat dark green car. Two different types of two wheeled cars and what took up most of her vision was a massive black box shaped one with huge tires. “Like them?” Mar asked as she started to make her way towards the front of the garage. “Um…they look…nice?” Twilight said a little uncertain. Mar laughed at this. “Nice is one way of putting it, I usually use the term badass but that’s just me.” She said as she approached a set of double doors in a small alcove beside the garage door. Twilight slowly followed the female biped as she pushed a button and the doors opened reveling an elevator. Carefully she stepped into the elevator and the doors closed. There was the whir of a machine for a moment then the doors opened into a short hallway with a door at the other end. Twilight walked up to the door and used her magic to open it and walk in not entirely sure how the elevator knew where to take her. Inside was a very speciose apartment with large windows that gave a decent view of the city outside. “Like it? Was the best placed apartment in the city, only a few blocks from an Ammu-nation, a clothing store and a Pay n’ Spray and had a near straight shot to the airport. The furthest place being the Pay n Spray.” Mar sad as she walked down the steps into the living room, Twilight watching her having no idea what she was talking about. “Um...that’s good.” Twilight said causing Mar to sigh and look back at her. “You have no idea what those are do you?” She asked and Twilight couldn’t help but shake her head causing Mar to sigh again. “Jeez you”re such Noob.” She said before heading over to a bottle of amber liquid and undoing the stopper before pouring a glass. “Well an Ammu-Nation is where you go to buy guns and ammo; they have everything you’ve unlocked. As a level one you will only have the starting pistol unless you got the DLC, in which case you will have access to some heavier hardware so you can compete with higher level players a bit better.” Mar drank the glass in one go. “As for the airport, that’s where you get planes and helicopters, there are a few other places you can get them but I prefer the airport as I get a larger selection.” Mar said as she returned the stopper to the drink. “As for the Pay n Spray it is called Lis Santos Customs now but I’m way more used to calling it Pay n Spray, you got there to fix your cars, customize them or even sell them for some quick cash.” Mar faced Twilight. “I don’t think I need to explain what clothing stores do I?” She asked with a bit of amusement in her voice and Twilight shook her head. “Ok good, cause I think I’d hate be helping someone lacking basic common sense.” Twilight nodded and started to wonder around the apartment while Mar stood in the living room not moving at all, Twilight found this odd but decided not to question it as this time do to the strangeness of these creatures. She made her way down the stairs to the lower floor which seemed to be a bedroom. Twilight wondered around the large bedroom, closet and found the bathroom down there as well. From what Twilight could tell this was a very nice apartment if it could even be called that as it was the size of a small house. “Hey Twilight where you go?” She heard Mar call from the upper floor and Twilight made her way back up. “I’m here, was just exploring your home. It’s huge.” Twilight said as she reached the top of the stairs. “Well it is one of the high end apartments so it better be big, whenever you get enough cash you can get your own, though I do recommend buying one whenever you get the chance whether it’s a cheap one or not.” Mar said as she walked over. “Anyways it’s just the two of us today as my friends are busy.” She said as she started to head for the door. “So I’ll show you the basics Twilight and then we will do some Missions to get your experience and money.” Twilight nodded and followed Mar out as she walked through the door and joined her in the elevator going down to the garage. “Now then…what shall we take out?” Mar said in thought as she looked over her collection of vehicles. “Can’t go wrong with the Insurgent.” She said as she approached the large black box of a vehicle and climbed up inside as Twilight went around to the other side and climbed inside of the passenger seat. The large car moved forward a bit and Twilight found herself blinking again and they were suddenly outside of the garage. Mar hit the gas and the Insurgent rolled forward up onto the road taking a right as it did so. “I’ll take you to the airport so there is plenty of room for you to practice driving a bit.” Mar told her as they drove down the road. Twilight could only nod and then jump as Mar plowed into another car without even trying to avoid it, the much larger Insurgent easily pushing the smaller vehicle out of its bath. “And learning on the Insurgent I won’t have to worry so much about you destroying my car.” Mar said with a chuckle as she continue to drive without avoiding the other cars on the road, choosing to just pushed them out of the way. Twilight could only watch from the passenger seat and form the conclusion that Mar had no regard for others’ lives as they got onto a larger road and made their way toward a large building at the end of it. They took a ramp down and after driving through a fence Twilight saw a large runway similar to many around Cloudsdale but much, much larger. There were also other strange vehicles sitting on large Hs painted onto the ground. Mar drove past these and instead headed out onto the run way and went to one end of it. “Here we are, this will be the perfect place for you to get used to driving a bit.” Mar said as she got out of the car, Twilight following suit. “No Twilight get behind the wheel, you are going to drive.” Mar said with a bit of exasperation in her voice. “Oh…right.” The purple mare said before going around to the other side of the car and climbing it, Mar doing the same on the passenger side. Twilight looked over the wheel and peddles, she was too short to reach the peddles so she’d need to use her magic but she could grip the wheel easily. “Well? What are you waiting for?” Mar said from the passenger seat. Twilight gave a nervous giggle before using her magic to press the gas down. The large vehicle lurched forward and slowly gained speed till it reached a decent pace by Twilight standards and nowhere near how fast Mar had driven it. “Don’t be afraid to drive at full speed, it would do good to learn how to drive at top speed as you’ll need it on missions and to avoid other players at times.” Mar commented. “Um…I’m just getting a feel for it is all. “Twilight said focusing on keeping the Insurgent under control. It wasn’t long before they were approaching the end of the runway and Twilight got her first experience in turning a large vehicle in that it didn’t turn very well. “Tap your breaks to help make sharp turn easier or let up on the gas a bit, trying to take a sharp turn at high speed is just asking for trouble.” Mar explained and Twilight nodded. She did as told and found the truck turned much easier and before long she was driving around the runways with ease and even tried driving at full speed when Mar insisted she do so. After a bit of Driving Mar spoke up. “Ok I think you got the basics, I’d recommend practicing on your own with other cars to get the feel for them as each car handles slightly differently than the others. Now we are going to test your shooting.” Mar said and was quiet for a moment. “There I set a way point on the nearest Ammu-nation with a gun range, just follow it.” “You want me to drive there?” Twilight asked stopping the truck in the middle of the runway. “Well yeah, you need experience on actual roads not just clear runways, trust me it will be fine. “Mar reassured. After a moment Twilight nodded and slowly drove towards the road, she blinked when she saw a glowing purple line on the road, that defiantly hadn’t been then before. “What’s the purple line?” Twilight asked as she stopped the truck again. “That’s just shows you the way to the way point, just follow it for now till you learn the city lay out and know the short cuts.” Mar said and Twilight nodded at her once more before she started driving again. Driving on a busy road was much different than on the runway and despite Twilights best efforts; she ran a few cars off the road and heard a few of the other drivers yell curse words at her. After a bit they arrived at the end of the purple line and it vanished. Twilight could only assume they reached the Waypoint and stopped the truck. When Mar climbed out it only confirmed Twilights theory and she followed Mar as she walked inside of the building they were parked next to. “Well don’t you two just make a cute couple?” The biped behind the counter said crossing his arms and Twilight stopped mid step. “Just ignore him, they always say that when two people walk in at the same time.” Mar said with a laugh as she walked to a side room. Twilight had to hurry to catch up. Inside was a blue circle on the floor. “Ok we are going to do a shooting range, you’ll be against me so don’t take it hard at the points, I have way more experience then you.” Mar said. “Just let me set it up and I’ll invite you.” She said as she stepped into the circle, she took her phone out and faded out. Twilight stared wide eyed at the space Mar had occupied a moment ago and was only brought out of it when her pocket vibrated and beeped at her. Reaching into it she pulled out the black rectangle and saw the icon in the middle had a one next to it. Clicking it she saw there was a message. Mar342 has invited you to a Shooting Range Event Accept? Yes No Twilight eyed the question wearily, the last time she said yes to this thing she found herself in this alien word, what would happen this time? But then this was from Mar so it shouldn’t be too bad, Mar didn’t seem to care about the death she caused but she did go out of her way to help Twilight and save her from the Player Killers. Bracing herself Twilight clicked YES. The grey circle appeared once more and a second alter Twilight found herself in a void by herself. In front of her was some sort of menu and a list beside it, she could see Mar’s name with the word HOST beside it and a ninety-seven on the other side. Under that was Twilights name with the word JOINED beside it and a one opposite that, so that’s what Mar meant about her being a level one. “Seeing as you just started we will use the starting pistol so you get a feel for it, later we can move up to other guns as you get them.” She heard Mar’s voice all around her and the ninety-seven was replaced with three curved lines when she spoke. “Um…alright, not a problem.” Twilight said and saw her one be replaced by the same lines. After a moment the void vanished and Twilight found herself standing by a counter with the silver L she found in her pocket a while ago held in her back out in front of her, beside her stood Mar holding the same silver L. “Well good luck Twilight. “Mar said and in front of them a countdown started in front of them. THREE TWO ONE When the countdown vanished red and blue targets dropped from the ceiling. Twilight jumped when Mar held up the L and it made a loud bang noise and a target vanished, She watched as Mar rapidly snapped between targets, the L making the same bang each time only pausing when something drop out of the bottom of it and Mar replaced it with another one. “You know to actually practice shooting you need to shoot Twilight.” Mar said as she snapped form target to target sounding amused. Twilight nodded again and looked at how Mar worked the L before she looked down the sights, the L seemed to snap her attention to one of the targets and Twilight carefully pulled the small bit of metal hanging down, yelping as it made a bang and the target vanished. “There you go, though you don’t need to be scared of it, it’s perfectly safe. “Mar reassured her. Twilight nodded and took aim again, each time she aimed her vision snapped to one of the targets and slowly as she pulled the metal more and more the bang didn’t make her jump as badly till it didn’t bother her at all. After a few minutes the targets retracted and Twilight blinked in confusion, she had just gotten the hang of the silver L and now the targets disappeared. The room suddenly went dark and words appeared in front of Twilight eyes. Match Lost Twilight blinked and she saw a number appear next with the word CASH above it and it went from zero to five hundred. Then that was replaced by a blue bar that filled slightly towards the number 2 on the opposite side of the one with the letters RP beside it. After that twilight and Mar found themselves back in the Ammu-Nation back room. “Well that was fun, sorry for kicking your ass so badly but that’s how it works, you got the gist of shooting down so I think we are ready for some missions.” Mar said as she started to head for the doors. Twilight followed a bit behind her and when Mar stepped through the door there was a beeping and then the ground under her exploded sending her soaring into the air. She came down hard a few feet from the door and Twilight ran over to her limp body. “Oh no, oh no, please Celestia no!” She said with some panic. When she got to the body she saw under it was a spreading pool of crimson and her friend didn’t move. Twilight’s vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears as she dropped onto the ground beside the dead body of her friend and started to cry. She watched through her tears as the body faded away leaving just a pool of blood behind. She was vaguely aware of footsteps walking up behind her. “Um…Twilight, what are you doing?” Mar asked standing behind her. Twilight spun around and looked at her friend alive and well, Twilights eyes went wider then they had ever been before and she was filled with both happiness and confusion at her friend being ok. “Oh thank Celestia you’re alive!” She said happily. “Um…yeah…I just respawned doe the block…” Mar said a bit uncertainly staring at the purple unicorn. “Anyways…ready for some missions?” Twilight blinked and wiped her tears away, confusion over riding all other emotions. “Um…yeah...sure one question…what do you mean ‘Respawned?’”