> Luna Plays...
>  by Chaotic Note
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> **Chapter 1 - [Insert 1 Bit to Start]** [Revised]
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pumpkin Fest was feeling good today. She’s on a roll. Nothing could stop her from cleaning out those cobwebs on the ceiling. She worked as a maid servant for the Royal Sisters in Canterlot Castle for only a couple of days, and she enjoyed her work. There were times when she had difficulty before, but now she knew where the ladders were being kept. Those clingy, dusty webs wouldn’t know what hit them!

She grabbed the end of the ladder with her teeth, wishing she was born a unicorn. Earth ponies don’t exactly have more useful abilities the unicorns have, but they are sure darn stronger than most others. Still, it placed quite a toll on her neck. She halted underneath her objective and released her bite. Pumpkin felt an uncomfortable twinge in her neck and paused for a moment to relax her bones. She felt like an old mare, which is bad. At least she’s young enough to not be confused as one. She grunted a bit as she lifted the ladder to a stand-up position and started climbing up the steps. Halfway up the ladder, she suddenly had a feeling of dread. As if something horrible will come by her-

“TIA! Get back here!”

A white blur swiftly flew underneath the ladder. Pumpkin screamed a little as she tried to keep the thing steady. As it settled down, another pony ran past the ladder. This time, the figure bumped into the ladder. As it tipped to one side, Pumpkin silently said a prayer, closed her eyes, and let the steps carry her to her doom. Instead of the hard surface of the floor, she landed on a soft, warm, plush form. As the ladder crashed with a clank, she opened her hazel eyes to see who her savior was. Her eyes met with a navy blue coat, and a beautiful, starry mane that projected an image of the night sky. Her heroine turned around to face Pumpkin, and she met with a regal face of beauty fixated with concern.

“Art thou alright maid?” Luna asked.

The orange mare could feel her face getting redder and warmer.

“Y-yes!” she squeaked. “I’m so sorry for being a burden, Princess Luna!”

“’Tis’ alright citizen,” she assured. “Err, run by me again. What is thy name?”

“Pumpkin Fest!” she squeaked.

“Ah, well Pumpkin Fest. Please take care when my sister and I are on break. I assume somepony reminded you that was today, yes?”

“Sorry, I’m new here!” she sounded terrified. What’s Princess Luna going to do to maids who can’t do their jobs right?

Luna however was happy that Fest didn’t meet an unfortunate end. She gave the servant her most genuine smile and lowered her back to let her off. She gingerly got off the princess, careful to not move a single feather on her wings. Luna ruffled her wings a little and spread them apart. She edgily bent her front hooves, anxious to catch up with her Tia.

“Well Fest, do be careful. We like to use the entirety of the castle grounds as our playing field,” Luna warned.

Pumpkin slowly responded with a nod. Luna gave her own nod and quickly kicked off from the carpet floor. She thrust her wings forward and left behind a gale of wind behind. Her gust shook the halls, threatening the vases to fall to the ground. Fest looked upon in horror and rushed to each pedestal to stabilize them. As she adjusted the last one, she sighed with relief. At least that’s another disaster averted. As she rested for a moment, she remembered she needed to clean up the cobwebs. Pumpkin Fest groaned as she needed to put the heavy ladder up again. She looked up to see where the cobwebs were again, only to see the ceiling to be dusted clean of its grimy wardens. Huh? Where did they go?




Luna was very glad to have saved that mare from a trip to the hospital. However, she didn't let that small victory cloud her focus as she wanted to catch up to her sister. She cannot afford to let her get away after what she did. As she sped down the halls, veering left and right to avoid the bystanders. She heard yelps and gasps as the ponies behind her darted away from her dash. As she felt the air around her move, she smiled as she could feel the end of her chase was nearing.




Celestia leaned against the wall as her lungs needed some much needed air. That sister of hers was hard to evade, but she felt the fruits of her labors as she purposely gave the ladder a nudge. It was a bad habit of her to cheat, even to the extent of using that poor pony as a part in her plan to distract Luna from chasing her. She couldn’t imagine the horrors of what would happen if she were to catch up to her. She made sure though to get a visual on the victim of her distraction plan. It was Pumpkin Fest right? I’ll be sure to give her a bonus on her next pay.

As she caught her breath, she looked behind her to see if Luna was up to her sneaking tricks. She hadn’t caught a single spot of royal blue in the hallway. As she turned back to continue her run, she saw Luna strafing from the left hallway. She had a look of victory on her face as she slowed her stop, leaving behind a large cloud of dust.

“Halt dear sister! You’re going to pay for your actions!” Luna bellowed.

Celestia cowered at the sudden surprise. This wasn’t looking good for the cheater’s future. She spun around and started to make a break for it, but she was pounded to ground by the force of the night. She could feel the sting of the carpet as her face was rubbed into its faux wool. She rolled over to see Luna with a scary look on her face. Her smile stretched from end to end, giving her a wild look.

“Now sister,” she started. “You shall feel the wrath of Princess Luna!”

She raised a hoof as if to throw a punch. Celestia closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable. 

After what felt like a couple of hours passed, she felt a poke to her snow-white chest.

“Tag! You’re it!” Luna said happily.

Celestia tossed her hooves in the air, as if she was hit by a fully charged magic blast. “Augh! You got me!”

Luna gave her loving sister a slight, playful nudge. “Hey, it’s just a sporting game of tag.” She got off Celestia to give her room. “Surely you are jesting me that you gave it your all.”

Celestia chuckled a little as for her response. “Well I am 1000 years out of shape. There wasn’t a pony that I could spar with. I fear I am not as agile as I was before.” She looked at Luna with a quizzical look. “How were you able to keep your strength?”

“Well, you did send me to the moon. There wasn’t much to do there, so I flew around the moon each day.”

An awkward moment passed between the two as the topic of the banishment was brought up. Luna let out a sheepish laugh, while her sister quickly thought of a change of subject. A golden armored pony however came around the corner and coughed loudly to get the two Alicorns’ attentions.

“Your royal majesty,” he said to Celestia. “The council would like to have a word with you. It’s an emergency concerning about Fillydelphia’s banana plantation being threatened by a parasprite infestation.”

Celestia wanted to groan and whine, but she had to keep with her calm, regal appearance.
“Thank you, royal guard, I shall be right there soon,” she assured.

The royal guard nodded and left the two sisters to their business. Luna looked at Celestia with a whimper in on her lips.

“Tia! You promised I would have the entire day with you. I’m sure those snooty council ponies can handle an emergency meeting without you!” Luna said with a depressed look on her face.

Celestia only looked back with a sad face of her own. “Luna, you know that I must go. Those old colts will just argue back and forth until I come up with a solution. You know how they can get if I’m absent from the room.”

“But-“

“No buts, Lulu.”

Luna grumbled a little and sat on her haunches. She turned away with a puffed face to make her look annoyed. Celestia sighed and gingerly sat next to her sister. Luna only scooted away and crossed her front hooves together, looking like a very grumpy princess. As Celestia tried to come up with a solution, she felt a presence of another pony behind her. She turned around to be met with a bright coated, fluffy mane-d, Ponyville’s local energetic party pony.

“Hi Princess Celestia!” Pinkie Pie grinned.

“Oh hello there my little pony!” Celestia happily greeted. “What brings you here?”

“I just felt a frowny wowny in this part of Equestria,” Pinkie Pie said, with a serious look on her face. “My senses are telling me that they are off the charts! It must being coming from an extremely powerful, magical pony. So I came to Canterlot!” She looked around, as if she was locating the source of the sadness. “I've tracked the distressing trail right around here, but I don’t see a sad pony.”

“Why don’t you try looking over there?” Celestia chided as she pointed a hoof in Luna’s general direction.

A cloud of rain was pouring down on her celestial mane. It only lowered Celestia’s sympathetic levels as her sister had a bad habit of summoning rain clouds when she is a bad mood. The small thunder in the pod of fluff only made the situation worse. Pinkie Pie stood back as she observed to problem at hoof. Two sad sisters, a royal guardscolt messenger, that room of angry, old colts she passed back there. It could mean only one thing, and her wiggly ears and chest confirmed it for her.

“You two were having a nice day off today from your royal duties, but Princess Celestia just received noticed of an emergency meeting with Canterlot’s council members and Luna doesn't want you to go because she will be bored,” Pinkie Pie deducted. “Am I right?”

The rain cloud stopped pouring as the two sisters looked at the party pony with wide eyes. It was unheard of as they never heard anypony piece together such a conclusion with such accuracy before. Pinkie Pie only gave them a simple smile.

“Yes. That is correct, Element of Laughter,” Luna confirmed. “Do you have a solution for us?”

“Why yes I do!” Pinkie Pie cheered. “Princess Celestia, why don’t you show her the joys of what video games could bring?”

Celestia’s pupil grew bigger at this solution. Why didn't she think of that? “Pinkie Pie, you are a genius. Thank you.”

“No problem, Princess of the Sun!” Pinkie Pie opened a nearby window and brought out a small cannon from Mother knows where. Pinkie Pie aimed it towards the open window, got into the device, and held a hoof over its launch button. “Well, my work here is done! Let me know what her gamertag is. We should play together!”

Pinkie Pie pressed down on the button, and was fired from the sky blue launcher. Luna looked out to see a pink blur going off to the rustic spot of Ponyville. Suddenly, a pink flash of a sonic boom went off in the distance. The citizens of Canterlot looked up in the skies above the town and wondered in awe of what it could possibly be. Luna saw odder things in her life and shrugged at the one-shot pink wonder.

“Sister?” Luna asked. “What did she mean by these ‘video games’?”

“Well Lulu,” Celestia said with a gleam in her eye. “How about I get you started with some Haylo?”
> **Chapter 2 - From the Dashboard** [Revised]
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna opened the ornate doors to Celestia’s room. She looked around the room to gather her surroundings. In the center stood a velvet bed with plushy pillows and blankets suffocating the mattress. A hearth for the fire lied on left side of the room, empty of any flames at the moment. Bookcases lined the walls from top the bottom. They were filled with encyclopedias, scrolls, and tomes of all kinds. 

She checked them for the one case that her sister kept the games. She found the source of her objective and pulled a green box with the Haylo Reach title on in. The examined the outside, intrigued about the detailed mini portrait of 5 ponies (or what she assumed to be ponies) on the front. They seemed to be walking away from the lands behind them.

She couldn’t see what it looked like, so she focused her attention on the characters themselves. The center was obviously the leader. He was in front of all the other ponies and had the dignified look of a captain. All of the others were looking around, wary of any signs of danger that could threaten their security. They were clearly soldiers; the way they were heavily armored pointed all clues towards that conclusion. The only mystery about the picture was the objects in their hooves.

She couldn’t put her hoof on it, but she felt like she’d seen them before. Especially the smaller one of the items in the cyan armored pony’s hoof. After several moments of memory searching, she remembered a long time ago before her banishment of the utility gryphons used as weapons. “Flint-locks” they called it. Hand-held cannons meant for anybody with fingers, with the capabilities of eliminating a Manticore with only a couple shots.

Her sister clearly saw them as a threat, and immediately set a rule to have all of the Royal Guards to have an active projectile shield around them. Either the protection would have to be provided by themselves or by another unicorn. After many tense years between Equestria and the gryphon nation Gryphoian, the gryphons agreed to stop the production of weapons.

Luna assumed that ponies today have learned about this. What she couldn’t put her hoof on is how these weapon’s designs came to be. She made a note to herself to ask Celestia if flint-locks were being made again. Despite the fact that they were extremely dangerous, they are certainly more powerful than the standard swords and spears the guards still use today.

She pushed the thoughts out of her head. She was here to have fun, not to focus on the well being of the nation’s security. She opened the box and took out a discus. It was very thin, and had a hole in the middle. Luna couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that a game could be contained in such a small thing, but she didn’t want question her sister’s knowledge of video gaming.

She looked around the plasma television her sister kept in one corner of the room. Tia told her that she kept a certain black box which is needed to play the game. After a minute of searching, she found the box and dragged it out to get a better look. It was sleek, black, and had grills on its sides. A shiny, concave circle was on the front part of the box and a bundle of cables stuck out from the back.

She pressed the shiny circle to turn on the device, and like her sister told her, the box hummed with magical energy. Luna could also sense electricity circulating through the box as well. Celestia told her that a combination of magic and science had created this wondrous tech: the XBUCK-360. She turned on the TV as well to see how the screen had changed. She was greeted by a large number of options and menus. The screen was literally filled with them. 

‘This must be the Dashboard Celestia was talking about,’ Luna thought. 

Luna didn’t stop there however. She snooped around the cabinet that once held the XBUCK, and brought out two other devices. One was a white, boomerang-shaped object. The sleek surface was smooth to the touch, and it had all sorts of buttons on it, including two padded sticks. Celestia told her it was called the Controller and that it was mainly used to navigate through everything in every game. However, that was not the tool she was going to use today, for there was the second object. The Interactive Pony Visor, a sleek white headset, was held in her right hoof. The visor’s eyepiece was singular, and its tint was a shade of orange. It was large enough to completely cover both eyes of a pony. The temples of the visor connected with each other, forming a complete circle. An antenna stuck out from the top rim on the visor, and an insignia of Celestia’s cutie mark could be seen on the bridge of the visor.

She tried to fit the visors over her eyes, but had some trouble with her horn. It blocked the bridge of the visor, impeding its way. After fumbling around with the visor, she found a switch that allowed her to separate the two temples. After placing the visor over her eyes and reconnecting the temples, she felt around for some sort of ON button. After feeling around the right side of the visor, she felt a bump. She pressed it and immediately a bright light was forming in front of her, or rather in front of her eyes. She blinked as the radiance temporarily blinded her. 

When she opened her eyes, her lungs were filled with air as she gasped in awe. She found herself floating in a massive, gradient green space. Surrounding her were wall-to-wall panels, each of them displaying an option for her to choose. What she was impressed with wasn’t the world around her. She’d been to the pockets of space between Tatarus prison islands and the mysterious white gap beneath Canterlot Castle. What surprised her was the fact that ponykind was able to simulate a virtual world similar to an ether dimension. As she looked around, she caught sight of another pony within the virtual space. Curious enough, the pony reminded her of somepony else. As she drifted towards the being, she noticed how the pony looked like her sister. The unicorn mare cheerfully giggled a little and poked Luna’s snout. Her mane was a hue of multiple colors, and her coat was the same blend as a flurry of snow. As Luna tried to touch the mare’s mane, the avatar itself flew away, giggling away as it weaved its way through the forest of panels.

“This place is weird,” Luna concluded.

But it was all very interesting to her. She decided to explore around for a bit before finding a panel option to start the game. Using her wings to propel across the green neo-space, she came across a multitude of panels with icons of shopping bags and various items. A big, white logo stood on top of stacks of boards, displaying the words: ‘XBUCK Live Marketplace’. Luna poked around and chose the shopping bag. Immediately, the panel glowed and a white ball expanded from it. Luna backed off as the ball took shape of a large silver orb. A green X was emblazed on the orb, mimicking the XBUCK-360 symbol. The orb continued to glow as it fired off numerous panels from its depths. A string of neon light connected each option to the orb itself. Luna looked around and saw that every other option available before had disappeared. Suddenly, Luna was worried that she might never find her way out of here. As she contemplated her situation, another panel bumped into her. She looked at it irritatingly, but immediately switched to curiosity. The panel had an open doorway with a pony walking through it as an icon. Above it were the words ‘Exit’. That’s one crisis solved for now.

Luna’s mind wandered as she thought what happened to that mare she met earlier. As she turned around, the night princess yelped as the said mare appeared in front of her. The mare giggled a little and hoof bumped Luna’s nose again. She then gestured to Luna’s hooves, and then pointed to her own nose. Luna didn’t know what the mare was trying to do, but the motion was simple enough. Luna prodded the mare’s nose and a bunch of panels popped up behind the unicorn. The mare performed a happy flip in the air. She seemed pleased. As the little pony flew around Luna, the princess peered at the options the mare seemingly gave. A profile of Celestia was displayed to her. A picture of Tia, her short  biography, her likes and dislikes of all sorts, a basic stack of information of the mare, anything that wasn’t confidential about her sister could be found here. Suddenly, the mysterious mare made sense to her. The mare was Celestia herself! Or at the very least, was a small, artificial extension of the sun goddess. The mare certainly did act childish like Tia was back when the two goddesses were both very little fillies. Luna looked at the profile again, and saw a display of a name.

SunnySkiesGalore.

Luna suspected that Celestia went by this persona to avoid unnecessary and awkward conversations with other ponies. It was also certainly a fitting name for Celestia. She looked at the avatar of Celestia again. She was looking very expectantly at her.

“Sunny Skies, is that your name?” Luna asked.

The mare blissfully nodded and did another happy flip. Luna gave a grin of her own as Sunny Skies dancing in the space around her. She wondered if she could have an avatar of her own like Sunny Skies. She doubted that. Luna admitted to herself that she wasn’t exactly the most gleeful of most ponies. Her avatar would certainly be more serious than her sister’s, and definitely the color of blue. Sunny Skies flew around the space and grabbed a few more panels. The gleeful unicorn brought back them back. They were the gateways to the other realms of the Dashboard, all for the Moon Princess to take her pick. She was tempted to discover some more, but she waited long enough. She chose the option to play a game. The world around her dimmed until Luna could see through the visor again. It was like looking at two worlds phasing through each other.

After fumbling around a bit, she grabbed a hold onto Haylo Reach and popped the disc into the now open tray. She closed the tray and waited as the Dashboard world materialized around her again. The panel that allowed her to open the tray changed appearance, and the team of soldiers popped up again as its cover. Sunny Skies tapped the panel, barely containing her enthusiasm. Luna smiled with and tapped the panel along with her. As soon as her hoof made contact, the space of the Dashboard slowly faded around her into darkness.
>  **Chapter 3 - Haylo Reach: Start of a Journey** [Rewritten]
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Nauseous, like she spent some time in a whirlpool, Luna’s field of vision was filled with light and colors once more. She heard a constant, faded ringing in her ears, and her sight was blurry and she couldn't focus. Of all things, Luna didn’t expect that entering a video game would be so excruciatingly uncomfortable. If she were to compare this sickness to anything else she'd experienced, it would be like the first time she had to the get comfortable with her regal, adult body. While her older sister loved and adored her younger form, with its light blue mane and smaller stature, Luna wanted to regain her wavy, starry mane again and her leaner, stronger body. The process to regain her adult form was slow, and took up at least a week or so; the crucial parts of the procedure also made her nauseous enough to lose her stomach’s contents a few times, and returning to her full, goddess-level strength would actually take longer than that. Originally, this ritual had taken one month.

Luna, unlike her sister, was unfortunately not the most patient of ponies in this case.

While she had her adult form back, the following weeks were very unkind towards her. Everything she loved to eat wouldn’t stay in her stomach for very long, before it simply came back up, usually into a bucket. The only thing that would stay down her belly was that dreaded alfalfa. Despite spending a thousand years on the moon, facing those horrible veggies was one of the darkest moments of her life.

Recollecting her thoughts, Luna shooed away those distracting memories as she blinked away the blurriness. The princess took in a shot of crisp, cool air as she gasped suddenly as she backed away from the edge of the overhanging cliff she found herself standing upon, her eyes momentarily filled with fright. Taking deep breaths to calm herself, she took the moment to appreciate the beauty of her mountainous environment she was set in by the Visors. There was a faded rainbow gracing the grey skies above, indicating that she was perhaps in another strange land, not native to Equestria. She could see other neighboring mountains, sparingly covered in green and bronze forests and vegetation, much like the cliff she stood upon.

“Well this certainly is a beautiful area,” Luna mumbled softly to herself as she looked around. As she did, she discovered several metallic pedestals nearby with floating, holographic words above them. “Well, what do we have here?”

Walking up to the one titled Campaign, she found a green button its top. Pressing it lightly, her hooves scurried back as the environment around her drastically changed, now placing her in the middle of what appeared to be a small military camp, with strange armored ponies around her. They were the ones from the game’s box art! They seemed to be sizing up the ponies in green, more uniformed attire.

She recognized them, as they were similar to the uniform for the guards stationed outside Equestria. Celestia once told her about how some countries needed extra protection, as they didn't have the funds to build or maintain a force of their own, in exchange for some resources that Equestria didn’t have. Luna, however, didn’t like the idea of Equestria playing babysitter.

Sure, it’s nice that some of these countries offer some of their resources to her homeland. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if they were doing it out of respect, or if they feared Equestria invading for their resources. After all, news of the new Elements of Harmony spread around the world like wildfire since Discord’s defeat a few years ago. The last time she took a friendly trip to Saddle Arabia, their co-rulers’ lips couldn’t help but chatter away about how powerful they thought Equestria’s newest band of protectors must be. Their words sounded like exaggerations to Luna, but the night Alicorn believed that they took their beliefs close to their hearts.

Not wanting to correct them, she said little about how the Bearers are really just like any upstanding citizen of Equestria, once you get to know them. Of course, the pink one definitely took some time getting used to, and required some hardcore tolerance for her random appearances. It was decidedly not impressive when Pinkie Pie would surprise her with cake while she was brushing her teeth.

Luna fiercely shook her head, wanting to push away those thoughts. The more she thought about the outside world, the more she wanted to drive away their tiresome issues. Celestia really wanted Luna to relax, so that is what she decided to do! Relax, have fun, and enjoy this video game.

“I hope that this game will be long. Tia promised that games like these can be very distracting to a mind,” Luna mused, her voice filled with high expectations.

The process to setting up her campaign was clean and simple for Luna, as she walked among the floating options. First level, beginning of the mission, and easy difficulty, as this was her first time playing. She pressed her hoof through the options of ‘Skulls,’ wanting to check out its settings, but she held her breath as soon as the slight complexity of the pony bones’ nature revealed themselves to her. Luna tilted her head to the side inquisitively as she studied the strange riddles, her brain attempting to quickly process the information laid out before her. However, Cowbell’s “More bang for your buck” made as much sense as The Riddler from Batmare.

Just as thought Luna was done, her tail interacted with one of the smaller options, which turned out to be not quite so small, and it revealed customization settings for what appeared to be her Spartan Soldier.

Entranced by all the options, her eyes lit up and Luna breathed out, “Oh! This will take a while.”

Skimming through the selections quickly, Luna carefully looked at all the choices she had. It seemed that most of the armor pieces farther down the lists were unavailable at the moment, as they were greyed out and had a padlock symbol next to them. Even with a persistent push, the floating model of her Spartan suit refused to change to her will. Softly nickering, Luna decided to focus on its color scheme. After thinking for a few moments, she decided on a navy blue and purple color combination, with blue dominating most of the armor. Pleased with how her armor looked, she backed out of the submenu and pressed her muzzle against Play.

Her sight went dark again once more.

“Oh no, here we go again,” Luna mumbled, annoyed.





Luna’s vision was hazy and foggy at best, when she came to. The earth below her hooves felt incredibly dry and craggy, as if it was torn apart by an earthquake. A dust cloud billowed towards her, spewing into her face with bits of the nasty earth and gravel. Coughing, she dispersed the offending cloud with her wings to get a better view of her surroundings. Luna gasped sharply, as the red scene around her unfolded before her very eyes. The earth was indeed steamy and ruined, just as the soil below her indicated. The mountains appeared burnt red and blazing just like the sky; the tallest of which was split in half, almost as if somebody took a hatchet and hacked down on the tall peak like it was a stack of meat.

“By my mother’s mane,” Luna breathed out, the size of her irises pinpricks. She stared, amazed at the destruction before her, “How did this come to be? Only gods could have done this… “

The probability of gods being in the game right now actually seemed fairly high, but the brief introduction on the back of the game's box specifically stated this was Science Fiction. Luna heard about how that genre typically didn't include gods and goddesses into their stories because they were considered to be Fantasy, even though Luna and Celestia were both living proof of omnipotent powers being a reality. Of course, neither Luna nor her sister scoffed at the idea of having stories like these around. Everypony was entitled to experience and create what made them happy.

She slowly walked the land, allowing the breath-taking, yet grim sight of the broken world to imprint in her mind, Luna came across a round object lying slightly buried in the red dirt. She was about to reach out for her magic to pick up the helmet, but was concerned. Was it possible to use magic in the game? Luckily, it seemed that the game responded, and allowed her blue aura to bridge a connection with the object. Carefully lifting it from the ground, Luna blew the red dust off the mysterious object. Her heart then immediately sunk as she identified the object’s identity. It was a Spartan Soldier’s helmet, but not just any ordinary helmet. It was her helmet, the one she had just customized prior to starting the Campaign. There was no doubt in her mind that this was hers. What could this possibly mean for Luna? Was she going to die in the game?

Her hooves shivering, Luna raised the helmet over her head, desperately wanting to be rid of it. She didn’t want to accept the idea of dying. She never asked for any of this! Instinctually, the helmet was quickly flung away from Luna, released from her magical grip. Just as the helmet was about to crash into ground, where its already cracked visor would break and shatter, its impact never came as Luna recaptured it again. She brought it in front of her again and considered it carefully, before hugging it close to her chest.

If her fate in this game was to die, then Luna would stride forward. She had to investigate how this all came to be. The game obviously had a story to tell, and she wasn’t about to deny it the chance.

The Princess of the Night continued to embrace her ruined headpiece until she realized the red world around her fading. As the world faded, the loud sound of something humming filled her eardrums, and Luna's world returned. She suddenly found herself sitting in the passenger seat of a green jeep, vulnerable to the cold air flowing through her mane. Luna quickly noticed how her body was wrapped in her new Spartan Armor, and she began to test its capabilities as she stretched her hoof, careful to not drop her now fresh helmet. It was surprisingly comfortable and somewhat flexible. All in all, she thought it was pretty good armor, and felt just as powerful as her own personal set. Perhaps maybe it was even more so. Looking at the helmet once more, she carefully started to put it on, grunting slightly in displeasure as it was a bit of a tight fit. However, she managed to get it covering her head, and soon found herself looking at a strange window, filled with data she didn’t really understand.

Of course, Luna knew she would probably learn what all these icons meant, and she was looking forward to it.
> Chapter 4? - Goes to Games & Hoof
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This chapter is due for a replacement. Come back later or read chapters past 5.


Author's Note

Sorry for the late chapter, there was this black out for days and I couldn't access the internet. Thank Celestia my uncle let I and my family stay over for a couple of days. Unfortunate enough though to forget the laptop. Anyway, hope you forgive me for the short chapter, but here it is. Also, please excuse for using my own name in this story, but we can't just have a nameless random colt in here now can we? Again, so sorry for chapter shorties but this is the best I can do as I'm trying to fit 'fan fiction writing time' into my shenanigan schedules and what not.
And stay chaotic guys!

(Also, self insertion. Because I can!)

-------------------
6 Hours Later
-------------------

It is 8:32 PM. Luna has spent her entire day fighting non-stop against her foe, the Covenant. As she walks through the halls of the abandoned RGF and UNSC headquarters, she contemplates on her adventures with Noble team. She weeps for the deaths of her nonexistent comrades as they all fell to a cruel fate. Job was the first to go when he sacrificed himself to activate the Slip-Space bomb. She had no control over that moment as it was within his programming to do so. She could still hear his last words to "Make it count". What did he mean by that? Is it to make every bullet she has to hit those alien bastards? Or is it to make sure to spend their time wisely and evacuate the citizens?

Luna then remembers Cat. She was so close, yet so far. Luna hasn't even seen this coming. Had she had the option at the time, she would of taken the needle for Cat and taken out the gunner at the same time. It would of been awesome but yet again, stupid cutscene. June was ordered by Cloudrain to protect Dr. Haylsey while she goes towards CASTLE Base. Why would Cloudrain make the descision to make June do so, she'll never know. Then there was Cloudrain himself. Luna grabs a hoof full of tissues and dabs her eyes. Why did that idiot had to go slam the Pelican into the Scarab? She had a rocket launcher at the time and could of taken out its eyes. Smile was the last one to go. Strange colt that pony was. Yet he was so cool when he took out one of those Elites while stabbed in the chest. All of this, all these deaths, just for this lousy blue container. What is this thing again? An artificial intelligence program? Yea, that thing. Everypony died for this horseapple and half of Noble team didn't even know it. Well it got delivered to the Pillar of Autumn, and now, she is going to finish this. No more running away.

"Luna," Captain Keys said. "You sure you want to do this?"

Luna gave him a smile he'll never see. "Ooooh more than anything. I had a good run, but now I need to finish this."

"Alright, good luck then, and have fun." Captain Keys said.

Luna walks up the steps to find three Zealot class Elites waiting for her. All of them unsheathed their swords, looking at her with those black, malicious, beady eyes.

"Oh I will." Luna responded with a grin.

Luna breaks out her Sniper Rifle and aims her crosshairs over one of the lizard's heads. She pulls the trigger and lands the hit with 120 percent accuracy. She decides to slam the rifle into the second elite's face as it was her last bullet, and trades it for his sword. As the zealot stumbles into his friend, he gets pushed back towards Luna and she swiftly slices the poor reptile into two pieces. The last one is shocked at his mistake and roars in rage at his own stupidity, and at Luna for killing his brothers in arms. It sprints towards Luna with a sword in one hand, and a Fuel Rod in another. Firing in three bursts at a time, the elite rains Luna with green energy balls that will surely melt the armor off her. Luna was splashed upon by green goo and explosions as the Zealot looks upon his victory. As the smoke clears, a blue flash flies from the dark and impales the elite to the wall behind it. Luna steps out from the smoke that is now revealing a blue bubble shield that Luna placed down seconds before the hit.

She walks over to the pad with the mass driver and pauses to look at Smile's body. It leans on the rail, surrounded by two elite bodies. Luna chuckles a little as she looks at the pony skull that was embroidered. It still has that smile on it. She trots over to the seat where the controls are and aims towards the hovering Covenant cruiser. She goes for the red underbelly of the beast and charges up the cannon for the final blow. Suddenly the room was filled with light and she misses.

"LUNA!", Celestia shouted.

"Huh? What?" Luna muttered as she squints to look at her sister.

"Its 8:55 and you still havn't raised the moon!", Celestia said.

Luna looked beyond her sister and sees that the sun is still out.

"But the sun is still up, how is it 8:55 when your big ball of fire is still in the air?", Luna complains.

Celestia looks partially annoyed now. "That's because I can't set it down when the moon isn't rising at the same time."

Luna looked at her sister again with blinking eyes. She rubbed her eyes to clear her vision and stretched her legs. She trots out from the game chamber and calmly brings out the power of the moon from within. It's usually an effortless amount of work, but tonight she felt extremely tired. When the moon appears over the horizon, the sun finally sets and Luna stumbles a little.

"Luna, are you okay?" Celestia asked.

Luna struggles to get up. "Yes sister, I'm fine."

"How long have you been in there?"

"I - I don't know?"

Celestia looked at her sister in worry. If she has been in there for at least 5 hours playing without rest, Luna could be out of commission for the rest of the night.

"Luna, did you eat at all yet?" Celestia asked.

Luna gives a thought about it. "Ummm, I don't think so?"

"Luna! Why didn't you take a break?!", Celestia said.

"I did!"

"To do what?"

"Ummm...to go to the bathroom."

Celestia sighed at her sister's actions. She thought it was a good idea to let her sister delve into the world of video games, but Luna out did herself and stayed in the dark too long. Celestia makes a note to herself to put some lanterns in there. Then again, her place isn't exactly the healthiest place to stay in for too long.

"Hmmm, Luna?" Celestia asked.

"Yes Tia?" Luna said.

"I think it's about time we go get an XBUCK for your own room," Celestia said.

Luna stared at her sister for an extremely long second. One second, Tia gets mad at Luna for not raising the moon, Then she is willing to go with her for a shopping trip? This is most unusually, and possibly the second best, day of her life. She jumps up and down for joy with a smile on her face.

"Oh thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" Luna cried.

"Eheh, yes Lulu."Celestia said sheepishly as she tracks Luna's movements. "Dear mother, what have I created?"

Luna stopped for a moment when a thought passed her mind. "Wait, how are we gonna go out without attracting attention dear sister?"

Celestia looked at Luna in the eye. "Oh dear, she has that twinkle in her eye again," Luna thought.

"Why just leave that to me."

-----------
Next Day 
-----------

"This is a stupid idea," Luna thought to herself. Celestia and Luna were out in the middle of Canterlot. It was a Sunday, so fortunately there were no stupid meetings about tax payer's laws or crops getting trampled by rabbit swarms. Unfortunately, Celestia always had weird ideas on what to do on Sundays. Today is no exception. Tia casted an invisibility spell on her horn, lowered the connection between her mane and the sun to change it to it's usual pink and straight self, and taped a picture of a sun with a smiley face over her cutiemark. Luna suited up in a black robe similar to the one from NIghtmare Night, transformed her hair to a design similar when she was released from her dark self, and adorns a pair of red reading glasses.

"Sister, we're going to be spotted," said Luna.

"Nonsense my dear Luna," whispered Celestia. "Our disguises are perfect!"

"We are still the same height as before!", Luna whispered harshly. "There's no way anypony will be fooled by this guise. The media will find out! We'll be laughing stocks!"

"Oh hush." Celestia flipped her mane. "As long as we don't talk to anypony or get in touch with our magic, everything will be fine."

'You mean everything will go to horseapples,' Luna thought. "Now just remember, if anypony asks, our names are Sunshine Daisy and Cloudy Night!", said Celestia.

"You were always horrible with names." Luna chuckled.

"Ah, here we are," Celestia said.

In front of the two royal sisters was a store large enough to be mistaken for an entrance to a mall, if not for the big sign "Game&Hoof Warehouse" with an icon of a video game controller next to it. They both step through the doors and Luna is greeted by shelves and shelves of game cases. There were multi-color sections in the store, one washed in blue, another imblazed with red, another smeared with black, and many more.  'It's almost like our garden maze in here,' Luna thought with admiration.

Thousands of ponies flocked around the place, looking at the various assortment of games, playing with the toy props (one that looks like the gravity hammer), or watching the TV screens with controllers in their hooves. Across the from the sisters was a kiosk cash register being manned by a single pony, looking at a magazine. The colt appeared to be a unicorn. His mane wasn't styled in any way and was a plain color of black, and his coat is the color of beige. He doesn't look like much at first but Luna looks at his cutie mark and knows it from anywhere.

"Chaotic?" Luna said. "It is good to see you!"

The colt looks up from his reading and has a look of suprise on his face. "Luna? Is that you? Hey whats up?" Chaotic smiled. "I didn't know you were into video games."

"Neither did I," Luna said. "We haven't seen you at Canterlot for a long time. Where were you?"

"Well," Chaotic said as he pondered. "I was going around, touring the cities of Las Pegasus and Manehattan. Nothing much to do there for me, I decided to head back home to Canterlot when I found this guy trying to sell the place here. He said he was retiring and said 'I looked like the colt to take it over.' So I took over the place and made it into the beautiful video game supermarket you see here." He looks away sheepishly. "Sorry I forgot to visit you guys, but its just so dang busy every day that I can't find the time to come by. This store is only managed by a few ponies after all."

"So uh, mind telling me why you two are in disguise again?" Chaotic said with a grin.

Luna looked away embarassed. "Well, our sister just thought these disguises were perfect. We would never wear such an attire willingly. We would rather grace our subjects with our royal presence!"

Chaotic laughs. "Oh my god, Celestia really? Couldn't you just send the usual guards to come by?"

Celestia smiles innocently. "Oh, but I had to let Luna know you were in the city. She was bored like a bale of hay ever since you've went. She always complained to me how she wanted to dress you up into the maid costume again."

"Celestia! We did not say that!" Luna denied.

Chaotic chuckles at the two sisters. "Well I'm glad to see you too. Now then, what can I bring you girls?"

"Well, Luna is going to need an XBUCK 360, twelve month live membership, and a couple games of her choosing." Celestia said.

"Alright then, Luna do you have a specific color you want your console to be?" Chaotic asked.

Luna thinks about it for a moment. "Do you have one with the design of the midnight sky?"

"Hmmm, no but I can have Blue Lightning paint it," Chaoticnote said. "Blue! Can you come over here for a sec?"

"Coming!" yells a mare's voice.

A blue streak of light comes flying over from the blue section of the store. As Luna coughs and waves the smoke away, she sees a light blue mare with a mane striped with blue and white. She had wings that had a sharp edge to them and her feathers dotted with a lightining pattern of the same color as her mane. She dons a cutie mark of a cloud with two lightning bolts of blue come out of it.

"Watcha need boss?" asked Lightning.

"Blue, I have a paint job for you," Chaotic said.

"Okay, whats the order?"

"Its an XBUCK 360 colored like a night sky," Chaotic said. "Luna, is there any other specifics you want on it?"

"Can we have the constalation of an Ursa Major on it, and have have a line art of one drawn over it please!" Luna said.

"Wait," Lightning said with a confused look. "Did you just say Luna? As in Princess Luna?"

Chaotic looked over to her and gave her a smile. "Yea, didn't you hear what I said?"

Lightning had her jaw hit the floor. "Oh. My. Gosh. It's LU-mmmph!"

Chaotic had a hoof over Lightning's mouth. "Shuush! Do you want to whole store to mob over here?"

Lightning peers over to the left to see a bunch of ponies looking at her. "Mmh (Oh)," she said.

"If I let go, do you promise to not yell, shriek, scream, or go fan girl about Luna?" he said.

"Mmmh hmm," she said.

Chaotic sighs as he takes his hooves off Lightning. "Ok, uh could you go work on that thing of hers? You're attracting a lot of attention."

Lightning blushes slightly with a sheepish grin as a lot of ponies are still staring at her. She gives the unamused boss a salute then dashes off towards the back of the store with a path of static trailing after her. Chaotic lets out a sigh of relief.

"Excuse me for my and her behavior. She always has some sort of antics up her horseshoes," Chaotic excused. "She's also batsy about you Luna."

Luna smiles. "It's alright Chaotic, but please due tell. I'm still curious of what games are fun here. I do enjoy the shooter games like Haylo and it's really fun, but are there any other games suited to my taste?" she asked.

"Hmmmm, I believe you're still reading on that book, The 300 Pony Odysseys, right?" Chaotic asked.

"Yes," Luna said. "It is of the most delicate of readings. Its form of Equestrian grammer is more well suited to me, and I do enjoy reading the "Battle of Thermopony. Very immersive the book is."

Chaotic chuckled at Luna's obsession with topless stallions in battle. "I bet. Ok if you two would follow me."

Chaotic leads the two royal goddesses into a giant gazebo tent with a silver icon of a what appears to be a dragon. Along the way, the unicorn was picking off several games off the shelves. He kept muttering to himself about 'main stream basics' and 'few unique games'. He opens up one of the tent flaps and bows to the two to let them go in first. Luna hears a chorus of stallions coming from the dark abyss and walks in, entraced by the epics she was being exposed to already. As she takes her first look of whats inside, she gasps at the big screen in the middle as she witnesses a stallion in armor cuts a gash to the underbelly of a dragon. She looks on as what she perceives the beast's very essence being stolen by the warrior. As the scene cuts the the sky, the title of the game appears.

"I believe the Pony Scrolls Five: Skyrim is in your taste, mistress to the night?" Chaotic asked.

Luna's lips quiver at the taste of adventure as she continues to watch the screen's hero take on more challenges against frost trolls and giant ponies. "Yes," she whispers. "This is what your princess desires."
> Chapter 5? - The Pony Scrolls V Skyrim: "The Way of the Voice"
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This chapter is due for a replacement. Come back later or read chapters this one.


Author's Notes

Every name that has not been changed from the game of Skyrim does not belong to me. But you guys already know that. Also don't fret when you see a couple of new things I've added in the game, I learned first hand that people do not enjoy reading about stuff they don't know. Also I was bored. Enjoy guys! (Forgive me for taking so long.)




"Luna, you feeling okay?" Harp-Shield.

"Hmm? Yea, I'm fine," Luna tiredly smiled.

It has been a few hours since she confined herself in her personal realm to play Skyrim. Few hours since Luna was called upon in-game by some old hermits on some high mountain. Few hours since she and her companion walked into the Auroa Forest. It was night time there, and with her PonyBeach headphones, the Princess of the Night could hear the owls hooting and crikets chirping all around her. The two celestial bodies that revolve around the 'Nirn' looked very big compared to the sun on that day and was the color of yellow gold with a hint of red. Luna's mare companion stares at her night mistress with concern. Ever since she was made Thane, the jarl of Manerun has assigned Harp-Shield to be Luna's guard, her companion, her marecarl as it was appropriate for all thanes to have one in the game. 'Bit of an old reference the creators added in this game, but nice to use,' Luna thought to herself.

The gold colored mare actually volunteered now that Luna thought about it. She couldn't understand why a mare would want to serve her with such excitement, especially when Luna picked the Celestial race for her character to play as. Celestial ponies are beings that are physical and magical entities. They were intuned with nature and the stars above and are considered god-like beings except they can be brought away easily with a banishing spell. Despite that weakness, many steer away from her kind and would rather have them killed then walk through their cities out of fear. Surprisingy though, she and the city welcomed her with open hooves.

"Hello? Earth to Luna?" Luna felt a poke. "You seem a little tense there my thane," Harp-Shield said.

"Well I guess I am," Luna said.

"Pray tell why my thane is not well," Harp-Shield said.

"Well, Its just that I've been wondering how the jarl came to his position," Luna said. "Ever since I arrived her, I received nothing but negative remarks about my kind. Why does Manerun treat him and I so well?"

The mare stared at Luna like she was crazy. "You seriously don't know?" Luna nods. Harp-Shield sighed as she lowered herself to get comfortable on a log. "Well my mistress from what I can tell from your story, you were captured by Imperials is that correct?" Luna nods even more. "You see, not too long ago the Imperials and us Nords didn't view the Celestials as bad beings. Celestials and ponies together created such wonders together: enchanting tables, the College of Winterhold, the formation of the Mage Guild, and almost every old city holds you see everythere including Manerun.  The two got along just like a couple of best friends. Then the Aldmare Dominion showed up," Harp-Shield said with an edge in her voice. "Those snobby elves thought they were the best at everything they do. Especially with their connection to nature and the stars above us. They didn't take kindly to your kind as your kind's presence defies their religion or something," she explained.

"Defies their religion?" Luna asked.

Harp-Shield nods with a disgusted look. "Yea, they believe that they were created by their Elven divines, starting with their first borns, the Aldmer. They have a connection to the world's magic core, which led the Altmer to believe they have that same trait as well. They claim their elders alone can manipulate the earth and skies around them, unlike us regular ponies can even imagine. But you guys can do even more then what their old codgers can do, and they see your race as a threat to their supposed 'position in this world'," she said.

"But what did I do to the Imperials? I don't see how Celestials have anything to do with having Imperials hate me," Luna said.

"Well my master, in truth, Imperials don't really hate you," Harp-Shield said. "They still love you deep down, but the Dominion has a hold on their capital in the form of the White Gold Concordant. A so called 'peace treaty' that was formed between the Imperials and the Altmer after the last devestating war between the Summerset isles and the Imperial Empire. One of those lines in that piece of paper states that Celestials are not to be acquainted or even contacted with."

"Thats right girly!"

Luna leapt to her back hooves and readied her front ones with burning strands of pure plasma. "Who dares interupt our talk? Thou wished to be caught on fire?!"

The voice chuckled. The vile laughter resonated with the mist of the trees. "Oh no, that would ruin this piece of robe that I've bought for this night stroll." A bipedal figure stepped out from the white veil, accompanied by two armored stallions on either side of him. The figure is undoubtedly male by his voice, but looked a slight bit feminine in appearence with his frilly blue outfit. His skin was pale gold as were his eyes, and his ear tips were pointed. His face was garbed in pony like features. An elf, Luna thought.

"So, what are a couple of mares doing in the middle of this forest? It could get dangerous," he said with a sneer on his face.

Yea. But it's definitely not you. "So if this is a dangerous place, why art thou here?" Luna asked.

"Oh you know, just minding my own his business. I have a job in this part of the woods, and thats making sure there aren't any ingrates messing about my home," he said.

"Your home?! Skyrim belongs to the Nords! Your kind isn't welcome here!" Harp-Shield spat in the elf's direction.

"Oh such a shame," he drew his sword. "and I thought we were going to become such good friends. I think my thralls will get along with you just fine though."

Luna shot up in the air and did a gracfully twirled in the air. She let loose a bunch of spark in the process, making her a deadly thunder cloud. Four deadly arcs struck the two thralls, cutting down their health below half. The elf's body guards didn't seem shocked at her attack, and charged towards Harp-Shield with their maces. She leapted aside and viciously bashed one of them into the other. She readied her weapon and expertly tossed her lance towards the pile, making one giant shish kabob. The elf wasn't fazed at the loss, and mercilessly swung his sword at the nearest mare in his sights. Harp-Shield quickly brought her shield while elf casted a spell that seemed to make his swings faster. The mare was more then capable of parrying all his attacks, but was looking pretty exhausted. "I could use a little help over here my thane!" she shouted.

Luna gathered all the magicka in her and conjured a shield of electricity around her. She then dive-bombed towards the elf while he was distracted by her housecarl. The sissy elf didn't even know what hit him until a giant, swirling ball of plasma tackled him to the ground. She got up from the crater she had made and looked down to examine her kill. Giant, fried, and charred to a crisp. More than a fitting end for such a wannabe warrior, she thought with amusement.

Harp-Shield went over to the two grunts to retrieve her weapon. "Sometimes I wonder why I chose to hang around with you."

Luna raised one of her eyebrows. "Why did you anyway? You seemed so excited to come with me."

"Well to be honest with you, I was tired of that old castle of Manerun. They made me patrol the gardens day and night, twenty-four seven. I'm surprised they didn't make me take care of the plants," she said.

"Is that the only reason?" Luna asked.

"Well, no," Harp-Shield said. "I'm just curious about Celestials because as much as I know about their history, I haven't exactly gotten around to knowing one. It's quite frustrating to be employed under one and not to know anything about your boss. You came around and I knew I could eat two pies in one gulp."

"You're a strange mare."

Harp-Shield laughed. "Well you're certainly not the first to tell me that."

Luna punched her lightly in the shoulder. "Come on Harp, we're moonlight here. We've got to get to Ivarsteed before sunrise. I haven't brought a camping set."

"Hey, this isn't Call of Cutie ya know," Harp-Shield said.

"What?" Luna asked.

"Nothing. Nothing my lady." Harp-Shield's attention was suddenly the night clouds.

Luna face-hoofed her forehead. "Lets get going before I you get really annoying."

"Ok milady," she said with a smile.




The sun rose over the mountains as if it has woken up from its slumber. It shined all its glory over the quaint town of Iversteed. A community that has formed underneath High Hoofgar as ponies gathered at its base to climb up the 7,000 steps of Revelation. Legend has it that when you walk up to the top, you could hear the hums of the Greybeards as they meditated and their songs could add a few years into your life. Such pony nonsense anypony would believe in, Luna thought. A simple sound of some hermits couldn't just magically give you a few more years to live. Although she shouldn't say that outloud, as it is probably blasphemy in these neck of the woods.

"Hey, you're heading to High Hoofgar aren't ya?"

Luna looked around and spotted a colt standing on a bridge. "Well? Are ya?" the colt repeated.

"Yes we are, why question us villager?" Luna said.

The pony brought forward a knapsack. "You see, I'm looking for somepony to help me out with an errand for today. Mah wife is sick today and I need to tend to her needs. But I can't ignore my duties to bring supplies up to them Greybeards." He offered the bag to her. "If you would please do me this one favor? I'll pay you for the job."

Luna felt uncomfortable at the prospect of taking Bits from the stranger. He obviously had the looks of a farmer by amount of dirt smeared on his hooves, and he didn't look like much like he was profiting either. Throughout her travels, farmers in 'out of the way' places don't profit as much as those near the cities. But she and her companion do need a room and and food as they traveled without rest.

"Alright, but on one condition," Luna said.

"Hmmm? What would that be then," he asked.

"You see, my housecarl and I are not in the best of shape for more traveling. We've come a long way from Whiterun to come here. We have not stopped to rest for one moment, and now at our journey's end, we've need of restoration of sleep and energy, only to start a new one to the top of the grand mountain," Luna said.

"...What?" The colt obviously looked confused.

Harp-Shield nudged Luna as she stepped forward. "What my thane here is trying to say is that we've walked a long way here, and we need to rest a little at the nearest inn. She's asking you to pay for our room and meal."

"Oh, but of course! I'll be happy to pay for your needs as long as you are ready for the trip."

"Thank you," Harp-Shield said. "Now uh, where's the nearest bar?"




"ANOTHER BOTTLE OF MEAD!"

Oh dear, Harp-Shield is drinking again, Luna thought. The mare did have trouble keeping her drinks down. She may be good in a fight, but she could not handle at least one bottle of pure pleasure before she starts ranting her muzzle off. The mare was now standing on the center table with a couple of other drunken mares, singing along with the bard. At least she's having fun, Luna smiled.

Luna ordered an ice cold Blackbriar and was about to take a sip until a mare sat down next to her. Luna didn't know why she assumed the stranger to be a mare, could be the slim posture. The hooded mare orders a drink of her own, then turns her attention towards Luna.

"Hey," the mysterious mare asked. "Hows it going?"

"I'm very well, what is it that you want from me?" Luna asked.

Luna could see a sliver of a smile forming on the mare. "You are very popular Luna, thane of Manerun. We know what you did last night."

Luna just then felt a wind of a chill along her spine, she looked around her and only saw her companion singing something about a colt from Roriksteed. She looked back to the mare to find that her seat was replaced with a scroll. Luna levitates the scrolls to proceded to open it. Inside was a dark hoofstamp with the following words that emphasized the stranger's last words. We Know. She couldn't help but feel that she'll hear from the mare again. Well time to hit the hay.

"Come on Harp, time to get some sleep," Luna shouted over the song.

"Oh comon Luna, you and I are fwends! Let meh uh...get anotha bottle 'ere," Harp-Shield said.

Sigh, oh why did I agree to letting that farmer buy her a drink. "Come on you! I'm not letting you get any worse before bed."

"You know what I have to say to that?" Harp-Shield leaned towards Luna, closing the distance between eachother faces. If Luna was really there, she was sure Harp's breath would smell like honey and ginger. Luna found herself lost in her friend's eyes, and suddenly felt a bit of longing for something she couldn't grasp. What could it be- "Nuuuuuuuuuoooooo."




Sigh, well that was a memorable night. Luna woke up in the next morning to find herself being wrapped in Harp's hooves. Why am I the pillow here? Harp-Shield actually put up quite a fight when Luna tried to drag her into bed to get some sleep. It lowered Luna's health quite a bit. She doesn't understand why Besthesda would make it that followers would have to sleep in the same room as you if all you're getting is an auto-save and a couple of bruises. Harp-Shield muttered something about cakes. Heh, cute.

Luna went over to the chest to retrieve her stuff. As she rummaged through her books, she found the scroll from last night's meeting with the stranger. Who was that pony? And what did she found out what we did the night before? Is it that fight with the elf? Luna didn't want any more trouble then she went through already. The Aldmare Dominion is probably after her for killing one of their own right now. Was that mare a part of them? Then again, she didn't have any ill intent in her voice.

Perhaps she was thinking too much on the subject. As of now, they need to focus on the quest of getting to the Greybeards. She finished up gathering her stuff, and threw the Harp-Shield's bag at the owner. The bag landed with a satisfying thud, along with the music of a mare screaming as she crash landed onto the floor.

"Come on Harp, we've got a mountain to climb."

Harp-Shield's response was only an moan.




Okay, bag in hand? Check. Housecarl intact? Check. Monsters? Check. As of now, Luna is surrounded bu a bunch of baddies. Furry ice wolves, ugly frost trolls, and chilling ice wraiths. Along with a winter Spriggan commanding them all. This day could not get any worse.

"Milady! They're everywhere!" Harp-Shield shouted over the chilling wind.

"YES, I can SEE THAT!" Luna shouted back. She is getting irritated at these mobs. All wanted was to pick a bunch of frost Nirnroots. But NOOOOOOO. Harp-Shield had to bump into the tree and somehow set it on Fire! FIRE! Luna doesn't care if Harp's lance was enchanted with fire damage, a simple touch couldn't possible set a tree on fire! Then again this is a bucking video game.

Luna tried to move towards the left but the wolves snapped back at her. "Milady!" Harp-Shield said.

"Yes?" Luna said.

"If we don't make it out of this. I just wanted to let you know that I enjoy serving you!"

Luna could only peer at Harp-Shield from the corner of her eyes in disbelief. "Really!? After all we've been through, you say that now?!"

Harp-Shield grinned sheepishly. "Well, we haven't exactly been through much have we?"

The spriggan looked irritated at the talk and said something that sounded like wood planks creaking. All the monsters then proceded to crouch. Oh great, they're going to jump on us. Luna readied for the inevitable death when a chorus of shouts bursted into Luna's expensive headset. There was only one time where she heard the voices that sounded of the gods. Or somepony using the royal canterlot voice.

The Greybeards.

The monsters looked petrified and retreated away into the blizzard. The spriggan stayed behind, giving Luna a piercing glare. The message was clear. Another time. The frosty humanoid stepped backwards, seemingly being melted into the background.

"What was that?" Harp-Shield said.

"It sounds like our quest is coming to a close," Luna said.

"But where did it come from milady? It seemed to have come from everywhere." Harp-Shield looked around for a source of the voices.

The winds meanwhile seemed to swirl around the two mares a little more. Luna's hoof came into view as she tries to block her eyes from the stabbing gale. When the blizzard seemed to pass, Luna heard an audible gasp.

Luna turned towards Harp-Shield. "What are you going on abou- whoa."

In front of Luna was a looming stairway that leads up to two sets of massive doors. The keep looked to be the length of two football fields, and three times of her sister's height. Whose height happens to be a few inches below the standard height of a building's ceiling from the floor. So it would three stories high. It was adorned with numerous towers the size of hills, and as Luna tried the look beyond the stone walls, she could see a pathway that leads towards the summit. What could it lead to I wonder. The grey stoned keep looked worn out from the constant freeze, but Luna was sure that the castle was infused with magic so it doesn't wear out from the storm. If Luna could compare the keep to another, she would say it was more impressive than Dragonsreach

"Wow, I've heard stories of how big High Hoofgar looks, but this is really amazing. Not even the Blue Palace looked this cool!" Harp-Shield said.

"I think it's more impressive that the wind stopped around us," Luna said. She could see that they were in the eye of the storm, as if they were in the middle of a hurricane. This magic could only be conjured by master wizards. Yet these Greybeards don't even bother getting food for themselves. I guess they spent all their time doing whatever. I should just lay the food down in the chest though.

Luna was about to open the chest in front of the stairway when a notification popped up. OH COME ON! I WAS ALMOST DONE! Luna reads the message and sees it as a party invite from Chaotic. Oh what does he want now? Luna paused the game and went on to accept the invite. As she enters the part, she sees a couple of gamer tags on the list. TwilightzEra, Chaotic Nuclear, Gamer Tia, PartyC4nn0n, FabulousGems, SweetBuckingCider, Shyponies6, DarkRainBolt#1, L0veisWitchcraft, and ShiningRoyalG.

"Hey Luna! Glad you could make it!" Chaotic said.

"Sigh, what is it you colt? I'm in the middle of a quest here!" Luna shouted.

"Oww, sorry Luna. Didn't know Skyrim meant that much to you." Chaotic sounded hurt.

Luna realized she used the 'Royal Canterlot'. "Oh I'm sorry! I didn't mean anything of an ill moment!"

She heard a suppressed sigh from Gamer Tia. 

"It's ok Luna, it happens to all of us," Chaotic said.

"Yea, emphasis on All of us." DarkRainBolt#1 said. "Ow, my bucking ears."

"Rainbow Dash! Be polite! Thats the princess you're talking to!" TwilightzEra said.

"Whatever. Can we just play already?" DarkRainbolt#1 said.

Sounded like she said that a lot today, Luna chuckled.

"Yes, we've waited quite enough to gather this group together, and I say we play!" FabulousGems said.

"Oh, I - I wouldn't mind waiting Rarity. Maybe the other team could wait just a little more. Can they?" Shyponies6 said.

"Aaaw no Fluttershy, I've waited too long for this match! We're going to show 'em griffins a thing or two about ponies!" SweetBuckingCider said as she's getting all Luna riled up.

"Well we should wait for Luna at least, right Shiny?" L0veisWitchcraft responded.

"Hmm? Yeah we can wait a little right Twily?" ShiningRoyalG said.

TwlightZEra gave an loud groan. "Alright, come on Luna. Everypony is waiting for you. You do know we have a clan match today right?"

Luna almost forgot that there was a Haylo Reach match today against the Griffins clan. "Come on my dear sister, everypony is waiting," Gamer Tia said.

Heh, no escaping now eh? "Alright everypony, I'm coming over to the lobby now," Luna said. As Luna saved the game  and brought out the disc for Haylo Reach, she recieved a game invite. She clicked yes as she replaced Skyrim for Haylo as she closes the tray. The screen lightens up as the dashboard appears onscreen, then darkens again as the console reads the disc's programmings.

"Alright, lets win today alright? Now let me HEAR IT!" TwilightZEra said.

The entire group responded with a shout. "Go TEAM AWESOME!"
> Chapter 6 - MacPixel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Warning: This chapter may contain stupidity and unexplained problem solving due to the game's nature.

PS: Why did I ever think this was a good game to write about? Like and Comment this story as always.










Luna sits down on her favorite chair, sipping her second favorite tea flavor: Honeysuckle with ginger extracts. She doesn’t know why she suddenly chose to start drinking this. Must have been the after the time she hid in Chaotic’s bed to hide from those two fillies. Despite that weird encounter, she tried the tea on a whim and surprisingly liked it. Speaking of beds, the owner of the bed that Luna hid in once is now dusting her room. Honoring the promise of the bet, the tan colt now wears a rustic style maid dress complete with grey mare leggings. All the while doing so, she could hear him cussing under his breath on how stupid he was to agree to the contest.

“Having fun there?” Luna causally asked.

Chaotic stops for a moment. “Oh, I’m having a blast. Say could you hand me the spray bottle so I can blast you with it?”

“No you may not,” Luna said. “Remember, the loser has to do what the winner tells him for a week, and that includes not spraying your master with water. Really now, you’ve only been doing this for 1 day so far.”

“Yeah, and so far you’ve made me clean your room. Reshelf your books and video games. Tripped into that vat of your potion brew which has changed my hair color, and pick up the countless pastry wrappers you have left behind. Seriously, how many Moon Pies did you eat?!” he complained.

“Oh, quite a few.” She sips more of her tea.

“Really though, why all the wrappers? That’s what caused me to slip into the cauldron and change my hair blue!” he said.

“Oh relax, you look great in blue,” she said.

She clicks over to her favorite gaming website to catch up on the latest news of gaming and all that is virtually holy. As she scrolls down the list of featured games, her eyes catches on a particular bit that has been rated five stars and tagged ‘Youtuber Played’.

“Hey now what’s this?” Luna said to herself.

She clicks on the link. The website immediately takes her to a page that is titled MacPixel. Luna reads the description.



The main objective is to get a bomb out of the level before 20 seconds pass. This is done by interacting and picking up various objects, which can be done be clicking on the left mouse button. An example of this would be on a submarine, where you have to pick up the bomb and throw it out the window.
When you succeed in getting the bomb out of the level, you get awarded by having one of three slots filled in with white. When you get all three of these slots filled in, you get a bonus round. If you get the three slots filled in again in the same round, you get a second bonus round. Although, losing causes you to lose the filling of the slots, and also causes an animation of the level blowing up, or the "bad ending".
The game has over 100 levels, bonuses, secrets, a free DLC, 185 BMP music, switchable pixel filters, and a level creator.




The game is simple. Just. Plain. Simple. How is this rated five stars? She looks over to the name of the Youtuber that has played the game.

PinkDiePie

Isn’t that Pinkie Pie’s youtube channel, Luna thought.

Pinkie Pie is a major youtuber on the web. If she has considered this to be playable, then so shall Luna. She clicks on the download button to start the process of installation. She looks over her shoulders to see how Chaotic is doing. Currently, he is passed out on Luna’s bed.

Aww, he looks so peaceful. Almost makes me wanna leave him sleeping. She floats over the spray bottle to sleeper’s face. Almost.

Chaotic suddenly wakes up as he gets hosed down by the gust of water in his face. He wipes the drizzle off his face.

“Come on, you only have a few more dusty book shelves to go,” Luna soothingly said.

Chaotic groans some more as he walks up the step ladders to dust some more.

Luna hears the bleep sound that indicates the completion of the game’s installment. She clicks on the new icon that gives the impression of a red stallion’s head. The screen darkens for a moment, then lights up again. The warning slide pops up with all of its immeasurable wisdom of the dangers of the game. She clicks on to skip it.

As the game continues, Luna watches on as she sees a red pony…is that guy defecating on TNT?

She observes on in disgust as the TNT proceeds to blow (up) the red stallion. White letters then formulate directions for her to continue. She clicks again.

Luna could hear 8-bit music resonating out of her headphones as she watches the opening sequence. The beginning shows a falling pixilated bolder with the words ‘A Ponyville Colt Cooperation Presents’ inscribed on it. It seems to be blazing with 8-bit fire as it falls through the atmosphere. The scene cuts back to the same red stallion that provided itself as the shortcut icon for Macpixel. The stallion had an orange mane and a large harness around his neck. He really looks familiar now that Luna could see the entire body. There is a large button in the middle of the pasture with an arrow sign that was begging the button to be pushed with the words ‘Press to Start’. Luna proceeds ahead to push the button. The next thing she knows, she witnesses the same rock from before, crushing her red protagonist. The title of the game pops up in red letters.

What the buck? I just started and I already died?, Luna thought.

The game then takes her to the menu that is filled with a bunch of pixilated characters with options floating above them, including her own character. Luna decides to click on ‘Story mode’ since this is her first time playing this.  The red stallion (which Luna decides to call to call MacPixel) goes over to the old colt underneath the floating letters and starts to kick the poor old pony out of his chair.

“Oh what the hell? What is he doing?” Luna shouted.

“What are you playing Luna?” Chaotic asked, hearing his temporary ‘mistress’ rage.

“My guy just started kicking the defenseless colt!” Luna said.

Chaotic goes over to her computer screen to see a familiar red stallion jump off his feet and teleport into what appears to be a room full the same stallion. Only that all the red stallions were at their different stages of life.

“Hey, isn’t that Big Mac?” Chaotic said.

“Who?!” Luna demanded, still fuming about the whole kicking thing.

“Applejack’s brother. He helps her manage Sweet Apple Acres,” he explained.

“Does he kick old ponies in his spare time?” Luna said.

“As far as I’m concerned, no.”

“Well, whatever. I think this is a dumb game already,” she grudgingly said.

“Well, this is MacPixel. It’s supposed to make a whole lot of sense,” he said, rolling his eyes and saying with a tone that indicates his infinite sarcasm. “You should start on Chapter One.”

Luna does so to only pick up the baby pony version of MacPixel. She then turns her attention to the black hole in the floor.

“Oh no, this isn’t what I think it’s going to be?” Luna said.

Chaotic only looks on in amusement as he knows what will happen next and Luna doesn’t.

Luna grumbles as she clicks on the hole. McPixel then kicks the baby colt over the hole and jumps in the gaping entrance. Luna watches in disbelief as the sequence proceeded in a totally different scenario. She turns to Chaotic.

He looks at her with a big smile. “What? Did you really think the baby was going to go in?”

She nods slowly.

“Well thankfully Ponyville’s colt programmers know when to not cross the line.” Chaotic leans forward to close Luna’s jaw. “And try not to leave your mouth open. It’s unbecoming of you.”

Luna sticks her tongue at him and looks at the screen. She clicks on the door to the far left to start the first round. 

Music starts playing as Luna sees an island in the distance. The game zooms forward as Luna spots a stick of dynamite on the ground.


“Oh horse apples, what do I do?” Luna said.

“Don’t ask me. I’m not gonna spoil it for you,” Chaotic said.

She goes over the red explosive and picks it up. She panics as the timer reaches the 10 second mark.

“Ohmygoshohmygosh what do I do?”

She spots an ice cream vendor and she decides to give the TNT to him. MacPixel however decides to smack the bomb over on the poor pony’s head repeatingly. The island explodes.

Luna stares at the screen in disbelief as the round moves on to a school.

“Whose stupid idea was this?” Luna said.

Chaotic shrugs. “Ponyville colts?” he suggested.

Luna looks around for what could be an explosive. She did not see such a thing anywhere. She goes over to the lockers and opens them all. The door at the very end reveals the bomb.

“Yes!” Luna shouted.

The school explodes.

“What?!” she yelled. “But I found the bomb!”

The game moves onto a snowier scene as she finds herself stranded on a computer generated iceberg. She looks around to see something churning in the water. She clicks on it to reveal a grey seal waving hi to her. She smiles and happily waves back in real life. The iceberg explodes.

Luna keeps on waving at the screen with a face of despair painted over her.

“This game sucks,” she said.

“Well, keep on trying Luna. You’ll probably finish it in, I guess, one hour?” Chaotic heads towards the door. “Well, it’s almost night time. You should raise the moon soon.”

“Sure I’ll do it,” Luna said, still waving at the screen.






Luna’s forehead beads with sweats as she races against the clock to finish the final round. She trots on the grounds of a distilled space station as she rushes around with an atom bomb. She goes over the cow in the space pen to shove the explosive into Faust knows where.

“Sorry cow! This is for the good of all pony kind and space rock goodness!” Luna apologized.

She slams her mouse button on a button that activates the bay doors. MacPixel hangs on for dear life as the cow gets swept away into the dark reaches of space. The game then awards Luna with praise as it tells her that she saved the day.

“YES! I BEAT THE BUCKING GAME!” Luna cheered.

Luna leaps out of her chair and dances for joy as the music plays. She continues on as she couldn’t hear the door to her bedroom opening, showing her sister looking at Luna bemused.

“Luna, it’s 8:00 PM already. Shouldn’t the moon be up already?” Celestia asked.

Luna just keeps on dancing.

“Luna.”

Still dancing.

“LUNA!” Celestia shouted.

Luna yells as she trips backwards. She looks at the cause of the outburst to see a very annoyed Tia. The two stare into each other’s eyes until Luna finally realizes what is wrong. She gives Celestia a give squee and an even bigger sheepish smile as she runs to her balcony.





In the next morning, a certain red stallion makes his journey to the market place to set up his daily run of selling Sweet Apple Acre apples. As he did, he could feel the eyes of a dozen mares pressing on him as he steps onto market grounds.

“Hey girls look! It’s MacPixel!” one said.

Big Macintosh flinches as a wave of fanmares sweeps over him as they try to get his autograph. Oh gosh, what has he done this time? 
> **Chapter 7 - EF2: PonyVsMachine (Ft. Ditzy, Cadance, Twilight, Belle Eve, and Lyra)**
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thunder and lightning clouds struck the ground around the mountain of Canterlot city, shrouding it in a cloak of noise and a torrent of rain. Meanwhile, Luna was sipping her favorite cup of coffee in the safety of the castle, in the middle of the day. She stayed up since Alicorns such as herself didn’t really need much sleep due to their universal connections to essence of life. Tia had the stars, mainly Equestria’s own sun, Cadence with her ties to love, and Luna had the moon and the dark matter of space itself. Still, she couldn't have felt more tired than she already was. The day was just being plain sad and depressing.

She stared out the window, which was filled with cloudy rain showers and pegasi flying about, moving the rain clouds into place. Luna, despite being a gamer, wanted to enjoy a relaxing walk in the royal gardens. It wasn’t happening today though. She sighed with resignation as she stared at the document she received today. Something about a hydra stomping through Ponyville. It deemed the resident, Rainbow Dash, to be arrested because a certain cyan pegasus was practicing a ‘Double Sonic Rainboom’ around its home. Or so the perpetrator claims.

Either way, the case was annoying. The Elements of Harmony were there to stop it from causing more destruction. The town was fixed, and the damage was paid for out of her sister’s own wallet. Yet, a certain somepony named Blueblood took this as an excuse to detain one of the ‘ruffians’, as he would call them, and have them locked up.

Luna promptly ripped the paper apart with the Luxury Royal Shredder as she fed the abomination of a document into the gaping maw of the machine. How wonderful.

Well that takes care of that, she cheerfully thought as she sipped some more coffee. Damn, I really wanted to go out today. I was going to go to the game shop after my walk, too. Fall of Cybertron came out a few days ago.

She swiveled her fake leather chair towards her computer and clicked on her Firemare shortcut. She went on her tumblr site to see the multitude of requests from her loyal fans; mainly those from colts, asking her to show off her flank.

Perverted assholes, she thought irritably. She then smugly smiles. Well, I suppose my flank is pretty wonderful. Still, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline their request.

She typed a quick response to one of the fan’s question and posed for a webcam picture to show what emotion she felt about answer the question. She then switched to YouTube where she owned a gaming channel filled with ‘Let’s Plays’ of Minecraft, Portal, and other games.

She had quickly rose to the top among the greats, Youtubers such as The SlyFox, Tobuckus, Hogscast, Uberhaxornova (Chaotic’s favorite, she would know), and most recently alongside with her, Belle Eve.

Luna remembers their first video together. It was a Portal 2 game, where she and Belle argued over who gets to distract the turrets and where to shoot the portal. Pretty fun. Before that, they first met at 2012 E3 convention (Equestria 3ntertainment) when Luna got lost in the crowd from Celestia.

She then went to the program Steam: a popular multi game platform designed by PIPe where several games from  PC to console could be downloaded. In Luna’s opinion, it was very convenient as she could enjoy all her favorite games on one computer. Unfortunately, I.P.V wasn’t compatible with computers for some odd reason.

She logged on and browsed through Steam for any recent updates or game sales available to her. She sure did love its game sales. As she scrolled down the list, she found a notice post concerning a new co-op mode in ‘Equestrian Fortress 2’.

Wait, what?

She tapped the mouse button on the link to read more.



‘Pony vs. Machine lets you and five friends fight a lethal horde of robots on new maps, with the opportunity to upgrade abilities and weapons along the way. Go to http://www.equestrianfortress.com/pvm for more information.’



Luna’s wings suddenly had the urge to express joy by springing up into a stiff position. Luna’s mouth hung open as she stared into the single paragraph of words. Equestrian Fortress 2? 

Co-Op? Robots? She was sold.

She brought out her iPony and quickly started to make a few calls. Chaotic meanwhile stepped into the room, still wearing the ridiculous maid outfit he was forced to wear a few days ago. His face was wrinkled with exhaustion, and embarrassment.

“Luna, I polished all your Lunar pots. Anything else?” he asked.

“Yeah, go fetch me a sandwich,” she said.

“Ugh! That isn’t cool to say,” he winced.

“Too bad. You snooze, you lose.”






Luna put on her headset and switched her mic on. She adjusted the ear paddings to make them easy on the ears, and lowers her chair height to give her the most comfortable seating position. She checked the lobby to see two players arrive: MagicofSparklez1 and Lovez4All.

“Hey Luna! Glad you could invite me,” Twilight thanked.

“Tis not a problem, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna assured.

“Hold on Twily, my game needs update. Should I accept it?” Cadance asked.

“Um, yes. It allows us to take in access to new weapons,” Twilight explained.

Luna’s headset beeped three more times, announcing the arrival of Lyra, Belle Eve, and Ditzy Doo.

“Hey Luna!” Ditzy said energetically.

“Hey Luna, what’s sup?” Belle Eve greeted.

“Oh. My. Gosh. Are you the real Luna?” Lyra energetically asked.

“Why, yes I am,” Luna said casually.

“OHMYGOSH! I’m playing with the actual princess!” Lyra girlishly squealed. “I played one of your music pieces before, it was amazing! You are an icon in music history!”

Luna blushed a little at the compliment. “Oh, it was nothing my dear. I just like to play the harp every now and then.”

“You created the harp, paving the way for all chordophones!” Lyra said enthusiastically.

“A chordo-what now?” Luna asked.

“You know, string instruments?” she said.

“Oh, that. Well I don’t mean to brag about it, but I suppose I did do a little something-something,” Luna said.

“Ugh, are we gonna play or what princess?” Belle Eve complained.

“Oh, of course, what map do you girls want to play?” she asked.

“Oh! Oh! Can we do the one in the forest with all the buildings?” Ditzy asked.

“Does everypony agree?” Luna said.

She receives a lot of check marks from her teammates, telling her that they would like to.

“Alright then, Ponyworks it is!” Luna chose the designated map and started the match.





The group spawned in a branch of a company building. To Luna, it looked to be the lounge area where employees could relax and eat at lunch time. She confirms this when she spots a coffee maker in the corner.

“Muffins!”

Ditzy, in her engineer uniform, dashes over to the coffee maker and repetitively hits the virtual pastry to simulate her desire to eat it. She makes a noise that sounded  somewhere around the lines of ‘Om nom nom’.

“Derpy, no! That muffin is not for you!” Belle Eve insisted.

Belle Eve sports the soldier class as she tries to push Ditzy away from the fake food. However, the grey pegasus’ assertion proved to be a match against Belle’s strength. Twilight donned the demolition pony, with Cadence and Lyra in the medic and the heavy class respectively. Luna herself preferred to use the sniper class.

“Come on girls, we don’t have that much time.” Luna went over to the double doors that she assumed to lead outside. “I could hear the timer clicking already. Let’s set up camp.”

The group spreads themselves throughout the map to cover the even grounds.  Cadence and Lyra, the two being the most appropriate pair, set out together to cover the wide main street and the two lanes that lead to the bomb’s target. Ditzy, Twilight, and Belle went to the front lines in hopes to diminish the robo-ponies’ numbers. Luna chose to go solo and camp out in a high setting, where she could view both the left and right lanes. From here, she could easily pick off any stragglers that the front lines have missed.

The announcer started the countdown as each of them took their positions.

5

4

3

2

1

Up from her tower, Luna could see in the distance the blue robot containment mobile base that serves as the spawner for the robo-ponies. A steel horde of clanking robots burst out of its bay doors to meet the opposition. One of them held the enormous bomb on its scrawny back.

“SCOUTS!” Twilight shot off a couple of grenades.

With a satisfying explosion, the group that surrounds the bomb carrier explodes in a mess of nuts and bolts. Luna picked off the robo-ponies that attempted to reach the bomb. With the aid of Ditzy’s mechanized turret and Belle’s explosive rockets, the first group is easily annihilated. Luna didn’t pause though as there was an announcement for an end of the wave. Her predictions came true as she spotted another group of robots rushing towards the bomb.

Twilight shot off a couple more grenades while Ditzy rushed towards the group of soldier robots. The robots launched a couple of their own rockets at the derpy pegasus, but her turret intercepted them in the air, causing the missiles to explode in their owner’s faces. Ditzy took out the rest of them with a couple kicks and hammers. Belle Eve just laid behind the turret line, spamming rockets at the base of the cliff where the robots were jumping from.

“This is too easy,” Belle Eve said. “Do you think that the robots ran out of scrap metal to build more?”

“I doubt that,” Luna said gravely.

From what her teammates couldn’t see, she scouted the next wave of enemies, with a giant soldier robot in their wake.

“Super Soldier!” Luna yelled.

The front lines screamed as the giant robot lands in front of them, picking up the bomb and strolled along, leaving the trio at the mercy of emotionless hunks of metals.

“What in Equestria are you girls doing!? Kill that thing already!” Luna said.

“As you can see here princess, we’re kinda busy with our own problems!” Twilight said, slicing a robot next to her.

“Lyra, we can’t get to the bomb guy! You and Luna will have to take it out with headshots!” Belle Eve blasts a robot off its feet.

“Awww yeah! Time for the mint power horse to slap some bitches!” The minty unicorn revs up her minigun.

Cadance just sighs as she uber charges Lyra for the robots. Luna wasted no time as she continuously sniped the super carrier with a line of bullets. Inch by inch, the super robot’s health goes down at the same pace as its walking speed. Lyra unleashed her own hail of bullets as she attempted to bring down the walking behemoth.

“Damn, it’s just not working!” Lyra shouted. “Derpy! Can you do me a favor!?”

“Yeah?” Ditzy said, bashing a robot behind Twilight.

“This guy has muffins! Tackle him!” she said.

“Muffins? MUFFINS!”

Luna watched in amazement as Ditzy rushes at the robot with impossible speeds, knocking the giant down to the ground, killing it instantly. The wave ends with a blaring alarm.

“Oh my gosh Ditzy, how did you get there so fast?” Luna asked.

“I sprinted,” Ditzy said.

“… But there is no sprint in the game,” Luna cautiously said.

Ditzy nervously fidgeted a little. “Um, well-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Belle Eve heads over to the upgrade station. “We already won. Now for me, I’m gonna get some hype ‘grades.”

Luna, already at the station, picks out a nice rifle that she knew could pierce through multiple targets. She also improves her Jarate to slow her enemies for easy headshots. Finished, she makes way to her camping spot. The round had started yet again as she shifted in her seat to get more comfy. As she did though, Luna’s character fell to the ground in a pool of blood.

“What the BUCK?!” Luna shouted.

The kill camera traveled across the map to reveal the figure of a sniper robot.

“Oh horse apples,” Luna muttered. “Girls! We have a sniper on the map.”

“Oh snap, Luna where is he?” Belle asked.

“Rooftop, second building behind you on your left,” she said.

“Okay, Twilight. Plant some bombs here so I can bounce off them when they explode. I don’t want to waste time shooting a rocket at the ground when I could get sniped in the air.”

“Okay!” Twilight said. She planted a couple a sticky grenades at the base of a wall where Belle Eve indicated.

“Okay, on my mark,” Belle said. She ran towards the grenades and leaped above them. “MARK!”

Twilight immediately pressed the detonator and Belle took off into the air, looking around the rooftops for the sniper. Her target was confirmed as she spotted him… until the sniper quickly killed Belle while she was in mid air.

“Damn it! I had him too,” she pouted as she respawned.

Luna meanwhile spawned back in the office lounge. She went up the tower steps again and aimed her scope over the robot. She took the shot, but entirely missed when her target moved. Luna anticipated the robot’s shot and ducked behind a wall, narrowly dodging what would have been a definite kill shot. She came out of her protection to aim again. This time, the sniper was missing.

“Shit, he’s gone. Lyra can you see him?” Luna said.

“Can’t really, I’m down here.” Lyra looks around. She then spots the sniper jumping between the roof tops in front of her, and on its back was…

“Guys! It has the bomb!” she said.

“WHAT?!” The others all shouted in unison.

“Oh no, that must be the reason why there were no robots spawning,” Twilight said.
Lyra and Cadence attempted to shoot down the sniper bot, but with no such luck, the robot sniped the both of them in succession.

“Shit,” they both said.
They had to give the robot respect though. It pulled off some pretty awesome kill shots.


Luna, however wasn’t going to let some pansy, fake sniper pass her. With all of her reflexive timing behind her hooves, she moves the crosshairs over the head of the bomb carrier. She cracks the bullet shot, and the robo-pony goes down, crashing into a pile of boxes. The girls cheered as the robot goes down, but Luna listened intently for a bull horn or a siren. No such sound came to her ears.

“Girls, we have a problem,” she warned.

“What is it Luna?” Cadence asked.

“The wave didn’t end.”

The group suddenly stepped into silence. Ditzy broke it.

“But Luna! If the wave didn’t end, then where are the robots?” she asked.

Luna looked towards the looming fortress that spawned all the robots. She looked at the bay doors to see something large heading their way.

“Girls, get to the front lines now. This is bad. Very bad.” Luna started shooting at the menace.

“What is it? What do you see?” Twilight asked.

Luna waited for a dramatic pause. Then she yelled at the top of her lungs.

“TAAAANK!”

There was a silent pause for a quick moment, and then the whole group screamed in frenzy as they dashed towards the forest area, attempting to cut it off. The rolling tank wouldn’t seem like it could be affected by sniper rounds, but already Luna had quickly shot 20% of its health bar. It didn’t seem to be slowing down, however as it burst through the wooden wall that serves as an entrance. Ditzy landed onto the tank from a nearby roof with a hammer in hoof. She spamed her mouse button in hopes of bringing it down. Twilight released her round of grenades at the beast.

“Derpy! That isn’t going to work quick enough! You might as well drop the hammer and use your butt instead!” Twilight said.

“How on earth does that work?” Ditzy retorted.

“I don’t know! Just do something!” Twilight yelled back.

“I am!”

“Oh my Faust guys, just shoot the damn tank already!” Belle Eve said, developing a headache.

In the end, despite the entire team’s effort, the tank plowed through all their defenses and imploded the stupidly designed self destruct button in a nuclear explosion. Luna groaned as the base exploded in a fiery death. Luna took a few deep breaths at their loss. She stretched her hooves and then went to the upgrade station to pick something new.

“Ok girls, let’s try that again,” she said, confident that they can beat the game.

Her bedroom door opened as Chaotic came back, magically floating with the requested sandwich. Luna looked at the insides of it, only to find daisies and spiced mustard. It was her favorite snack, but since she lost she needed something else to make her feel better. Teasing her favorite scribe might do the trick.

“I don’t want this, go make me a different sandwich,” she announced, pushing the plate away.

“What?! Then what kind of sandwich do you want?!” Chaotic said.

“I don’t know. Surprise me.”

Chaotic looked at Luna in disbelief, then he stomped his hooves in frustration as he picked up the plate and stormed out the room. Luna smiled a little, feeling a little satisfied… but she also felt kinda bad for doing that to him. She’d make it up to him somehow. But now, the game needed her attention.
> Chapter 8 - Minecraft Has Beginnings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna stood up top of a grassy ledge, overlooking the grassy biome in her starry magnificence. Usually, she doesn’t like green, but grass is neutral to her. They’re small, harmless, and make great garnishes. The world she is in reminded her of her old wooden block toys. She would use them to build towers of grand sea side ports, or looming, fortified wooden fortresses.  She stomped on the very ledge she stands on to see if it was stable. It was. She turns back towards the sunset that slowly floats downward into the horizon. It was a blocky sort of sun, but it’s as bright as her beloved sister’s blazing one. As she appreciated the coming of night, a certain colt’s voice brought her back to earth.

“Luna? It’s becoming night now, we’re going set up camp here,” Chaotic said.

Thanks to the colt’s brilliant ingenuity of technology, he could now appear in his natural form thanks to his newest invention: the I.P.V or the Interactive Pony Visor. Players still use the custom minecraft skins drawn and made by fans everywhere, and thanks to the high res settings of the visor, players now could have the option to look more realistic as possible, or look even blockier.

“That’s a great idea Chaotic. And I do have to say, I have to congratulate you on your success,” Luna said.

“Aww, don’t mention it. Besides it is you I should thank. If you didn’t accept the offer to be in the commercial, my sales probably wouldn’t go as well as now.”

“Are you kidding? Any mare or colt could have been chose to promote your visor and everypony would have still bought it. Who wouldn’t like to have virtual reality technology?”

“Probably those gryphons we beat before.”

Luna giggled a little as her memories take her back to her first Haylo clan match. It seemed like months ago, yet felt like yesterday ever since Team Awesome capped the last flag. It was a fun match, and she still remembered that conversation she had with Chaotic. She had been feeling a bit depressed during the match because of all the responsibilities she had, and she felt that nopony appreciated her efforts. She remembered being mad at him for some reason as well but she doesn’t remember why. Must had be something little.

Luna observed the progress the team was making as they build the group of houses that will soon be the capital of this multiplayer server. The Elements of Harmony, Lyra, Belle Eve, Ditzy, Cadance, her husband, her sister, and Chaotic all came in today to help Luna’s dream be fulfilled. Well, all of their dreams in Minecraft.  Today’s objectives were simple. Find a place to build the capital. Establish settlement. Expand the group of houses to a town, and soon, a city. Soon afterwards, through the powers of rumor and spreading the news, this will become the most popular multiplayer server ever! Really, who wouldn’t want to play in a world created by Luna (and company)? The city however, needs to be built first off.

Deep in thought, she looked up to see the moon rising from the east, a white block tinged with lines of silver and patches of grey. It was a wonderful representation of Luna’s celestial body, even if it was a square. She looked back down to see something in the distance. From past experience, she learned very quickly to be filled with dread at the first sight of it. It walks, explode, and it’s fucking green.

I hate green.

She had the right to hate green. These creepers as they were called do absolutely nothing except destroy everything that she built. And now they are coming over here to tear down her city before it even started.

“Guys!” Luna pulls out her sword. It was stone, but it will have to do. “We have creepers incoming!”

The group perked at the mare’s call and quickly come to her aid, with Luna in the lead. She swept in for a clean cut to the monster’s legs. The creeper landed face flat on the grass. Before it could blow up, Luna went in for the critical kill at the head. It died with less than a ‘sss’. With the power of the visor’s enhanced sound technology, she heard an arrow released towards her. With the combination of the visor’s indicator and her honed battle skills, she ducked beneath the path of the projectile and threw her weapon towards the skeleton. The blunt force of the sword quickly dismantles the dark magic structure of the skeleton that held it together, and with luck, the sharp edge pierces the spider’s soft abdomen.  

The battle went by so quickly, that Luna didn’t have time to process what her friends were doing. She could see Twilight to her right using virtual magic (since real magic would overload the game) to levitate her sword straight into the heart of a zombie. Belle Eve used ‘old school’ pony fu to kick an Enderman to the face. Fluttershy was staring at another one for some weird reason, but oddly it seemed to be working well against the slender man.  Tia held back a horde of the undead with her golden sword, quoting out battle phrases and poems from various video games that were related to the sun. And Chaotic. Well, he seemed to be doing fine.

“Eat TNT bitch!” *BOOM*

Yeah, he’s doing fine.

Throughout the night, Team Awesome quickly dispatched waves of zombies, spiders, skeletons, and other creatures of the dark, with only the silent moon as their spectator. Soon the sun woke up from its slumber to be greeted by the group’s massacre. The sun, being a positive force, decided to help with its sun rays, killing the undead, and driving the night creatures back into the caves. At the end, the whole group collapsed in virtual exhaustion. Luna surveyed the area once more to find it littered with creeper holes. Luckily, none of the finished houses were damaged and the holes could be plugged up again.

“Chaotic?” Luna asked. “Could you go get som-“

“Yea yea, I’ll get some dirt.” He ventures off to a nearby hill to harvest the much needed dirt.

“Twilight, I’ll need you and Lyra to mine some cobble stone for the houses.”

“Yes ma’am!” They both headed to a nearby cave.

“Sister, could you-“

“I think I’ll just stay here and tend to my chickens.” Celestia placed down a stair block and rested her royal beneath on it.

“But sister? There are no chickens,” Luna said.

Celestia pulled out of her inventory some wheat. No, not just wheat. Golden wheat. Soon after, a herd of cows, sheeps, pigs, and a flock of chickens appeared over the horizon and gathered around the sun goddess.

“Well I got more than I wanted, but at least I have chickens,” she smiled.

Luna didn’t look impressed. “I’ll go make a pen for them,” Celestia quickly said. She scurried away to a manageable distance to make a farm area.

“Well, since ah know a lot about farmin’ I could go help the princess,” Applejack suggested.

Luna only had a hoof on her face. “Just go, just go.”

Applejack scurried off to the new farm.

“The rest of you, we still have a lot of materials left. Let’s finish the houses.”

The rest of the group set to work, covering wide spaces with foundations of houses. Luna went right to work to build the defense wall, as she did she looked up in the sky to see the sun slightly warming her. The clouds rolled by, providing nice shades across the grassy plains and the future seemed bright for the future capital.

“Say Luna?” said Chaotic.

“Yes Chaotic?”

“We never even discussed the name of the city. What should we call it?”

“Hmm, how about New Ponyville?”

“Nah, too redundant.”

“Okay, how about, Equestria?”

“…Actually that has a nice ring to it. Even though we already are living in Equestria.”

“Okay then. Team Awesome! We are to call this capital, ‘New Equestria!’” 





Side Note: There are two video game references in here, the first one to find them both will be featured in the next story! (That is not Portal 2!) Or it could be a character of their choosing.
	
> (Meta) Portal: GLaDOS Trolls a Lot
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok so here we go.

Chaotic and Luna sat underneath a tree. They talk about flowers and butterflies and all the cool stuff nobody likes to hear. Then one day, a big gigantic portal was unleashed below them and they fell into the depths below. There, GLaDOS (a troll size meanie) issues them a quest where they must obtain the magical king sized muffin bed so all the turrets in the castle could go to sleep. They set out on their quest with their shotguns and portal guns to encounter many many many many enemies such as the 'Cake is A LIE! victim', 'Turrets', "Lasers', "Laser Turrets', and trap holes. They finally reached the king sized muffin bed and all the turrets went to sleep on it and GLaDOS actually gives a cake (made out of plastic). The two realized that they have no idea how to get home, and teleportation magic won't work cause it doesn't swing that way. GLaDOS then said she was tired of her life and decided to blow up the facility. In their last moments together, Chaotic confessed his undying love to Luna in the form of Frank Sinatra's hit song, Fly Me to the Moon. Luna, despite being annoyed by one of the lyric lines, caves in and confessed her love to. It goes like this.

"Do you like me?" Luna said.

"Yes," Chaotic said.

"Wanna kiss me?" she said.

"Yes..." he sweetly said.

They both kissed, covering all the walls in pink and hearts. GLaDOS threw nuts and bolts at the sleeping turrets. And the explosion goes like-


THE END


...

Yeeeaaah, I'm sorry for that. This isn't a real chapter. It literally took me 5 minutes to write so it really isn't considered one. I got bored as of late cause of all this typing of a new chapter and I felt like messing with you guys for a while! xD Anyway I hope ya'll have no hard feelings cause those would be tough to get rid of. I can probably expect some dislikes here. But really ya'll I was giving you guys a fair warning with the title.
 

Anyway, before I go work on the TF2 and a shorty chapter, here's something to show you guys.



My bedroom in Canterlot (apartments). Just felt like showing guys this. Giving credit to my friend Bianca for drawing the picture. (Really nice girl, go stalk her on tumblr for me xD >Bianca's Tumblr) Anyway, gotta get back to typing stuff.










Btw this is a meta chapter if you haven't noticed. Toodles!
> Chapter 9 - Portal 2: Sisterhood Is Magic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna landed on her bean bag chair as she held her newly repaired I.P.V. She had been looking forward to this moment since forever and now that the visor is now compatible with the PC, she could finally try Portal two. She was hyped to buy the sequel ever since she played the first game, but she never bought it because of all the new releases that came out this week. But now, nothing can stop her from playing the game with the I.P.V. From what she heard, Portal 2 had a cooperation mode and she was eager to try it out. 

She downloaded the game and patiently waited for the usual update notification to pop up. As she clicked on the update to start, she thought about the co-op mode and wondered who could play it with her. She scrolled through her Steam friend list for a potential partner. A lot of ponies were online. Perhaps too many were online. Practically everypony she knew is online today. Who should she pick? As she rolls down some the list more, one name caught her eye.

“Ah, we shall pick this one to play with us!” she said.

She moved the mouse cursor over the pony’s Steam account. Suddenly, the online status bleeped grey. She sat there for a while until gathering her thoughts on her next move. She decided that since the pony is right around the corner, she’s just going to go knock on her door. She stepped outside her bedroom door and made haste for her supposed partner’s bedroom. After a few minutes of trotting, she reached her destination and decided whether to knock on the door or kick it open…

The door didn’t stand much of a chance against the mighty moon princess’s hooves.

The unhinged door reveals a large chamber meant for royalty. A red carpet extended from the other side of the door and leads to the foot of the bed. Lying on the bed was a white, majestic alicorn of scorching beauty, with a gigantic cutie mark to match. In other words, Celestia, Luna’s sister. She was relaxing on a white plushie bunny; eating hay chips and watching what appears to be some sort of sitcom.

“Sister, what are you watching?” Luna asked.

“Oh, just a show called Friends. You’ve never seen it?” Celestia said with a mouthful of munchies.

“I have before. I just wanted to confirm.”

“Ah,” she threw a couple more chips in her mouth, not batting an eye at the night pony.

Luna walked towards her table in a calm fashion that didn’t betray any suspicious motives. She then scooped up the furniture and flipped it over wildly. Thank mother that there wasn’t anything on there.

Celestia didn’t seem so pleased however.

“Luna! What the buck are you doing!?”

“Play Portal with me,” she said with a blank face.

“What?! That’s what this is about?” 

She nods like it wasn’t a big deal.

Celestia huffed and puffed until she starts storming around the room. She started flipping out on a neatly piled stack of paper on a desk and chewing madly on a pillow. She gave out whines and ughs and moans as she complained about how Luna is so overdramatic about everything. Luna just stared at Celestia until she calmed down.

“Are you done yet Tia?” Luna said.

Celestia lied on the bed exhausted, waving a tiny white flag. “Yes.”

“Can we play Portal 2 now? With I.P.Vs by the way.”

“Sure, today’s episode was just a rerun anyway.”

Luna turned towards the mess of sheets everywhere. “Was that important?”

“Just the peace treaty between Gryphonian and the Diamond Dog territories.”

“Will it be okay?”

“Meh, somepony will clean that up.”





Celestia sat upon a red velvet couch in a waiting room, waiting around for a certain night princess to join the lobby. In front of her was a table that was piled on high with magazines from ‘Game & Hoof Informer’ and ‘Pontendo Power’.  She was dressed in an orange jump suit and holds an orange portal gun in her hooves. She has just finished the latest edition of ‘Dessert’s Monthly’ when Luna finally materialized in the room.

“Finally, where were you?” Celestia asked.

“Sorry. Sorry. The game had to update for me to adjust for the I.P.V,” Luna said.

“Well fine,” she walked up to the doorway to the first level. “Just so you know, I haven’t played the co-op campaign yet so don’t depend on me for everything.”

“Hay! I played Portal before! I think I know what I’m doing!”

“Oh please, I’ve seen you walk in circles for hours.”

“That was because the turrets were targeting me and I had to dodge around to avoid the missiles!”

Celestia paid no attention to her remarks and pressed the button. The door opens up to a large, sanitary, circular room with windows that only projected fake images of grassy plains and sunlight. In middle was a large machine that hung from the ceiling. Huge cable lines and wiring stuck out from the chinks of its shell and it had a large lens to serve for an eye.

“Oh. Hello there pathetic test subjects. How are you doing on this sunless dreary day?” it said in a monotone voice.

“Dear, I forgot how much of a prick GLaDOS could be,” Celestia whispered to Luna.

“Hey! We’re not pathetic you know! We are the princesses of Equestria!”  Luna shouted.

“Yes, I know that,” GLaDOS replied. “And from the wonderful source of information known as the internet, I know that one of you didn’t stand a chance against a single bug. I laughed very hard that day. It goes like this. Ha ha ha.”

Luna smirked as she saw Celestia biting down hard on her lower lips. She knew all too well about Tia’s embarrassing fight against Chrysalis.

“It was a fluke of a victory for Chrysalis anyway! I couldn’t be connected to the sun because of Shining Armor’s bubble shield, so I wasn’t as strong at the time,” Celestia insisted. “Also I just woke up from my nap before the wedding! I was tired.”

Celestia leaned towards Luna. “Remind me to write a very strong letter to PIPe about this particular moment. Letting an A.I. with access to the internet? That’s downright evil.”

She just rolled her eyes at her sister.

“Well then, we should start the tests.” GLaDOS opened up a door on the other side of the room. “Losers first.”

Celestia walked across the room in a high and regal manner like she was the top of the world. Luna sighed in exasperation at her sister’s ego and trotted after her. The room didn’t look like much on the other side of the doorway. It was simple and empty. It felt like being trapped in one of Canterlot’s finest insane asylums, where they keep all the weird and wonky ponies in to keep them safe from others and themselves. Also, it’s white.

“Gee, you would think the designers would have added some more color to this game,” Luna said.

“I wouldn’t say that. White is a very nice color sister. You should try dyeing your mane sometimes,” Celestia said.

“We CAN’T change our mane colors Tia. In case you haven’t been paying attention, our hair can’t exactly be affected by normal means.”

“Twilight actually showed me this new spell once. It temporarily allows a pony to change their hair style.”

“What’s the point in that?” Luna scoffed.

“I don’t know, but it was fun using it on other ponies!” Celestia smiled.

“Whatever.” Luna walked to the center of the room, with her sister in wake. “So what are we exactly suppose to do here?”

“Simple.”

The walls suddenly opened up to reveal a wide, expansive space behind them. Luna looked down from the edge to see a gigantic fall and another platform below them. Two mechanical arms suddenly dropped from the ceiling, the both of them holding pairs of white socks.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Silly me,” GLaDOS’ voice echoed. “You will need this steel nylon wool socks for the rest of the game. They help protect you against most of the damage you could get from falling from heights. Without these socks, you could possible die from these experiments.”

“Oh great, like I haven’t died before,” Luna said sarcastically.

The two royal sisters put the long and comfy socks on, looking extremely cute and sexy.

“Wow you two look really nice for once! That is good, because the test starts now.” The floor surround the two Alicorns suddenly fell apart, leaving only enough space for the two to stand on. “Remember, no flying, magic, or jay walking and we’ll get along just fine. Do not disappoint me like the two robots that came by earlier,” GLaDOS’ voice said.

Celestia looked down and squelched a little at the sight. Luna however wasn’t fazed at the GLaDOS’ attempt to scare them at all. Tia looked at her sister with uncertainty.

“Hey Luna, you can’t be serious about this are you? I mean you aren’t gonna-“

Luna took a flying leap across the chasm.

Celestia face hoofed. “*Sigh* I stand corrected. Well, here goes nothing.”

The sun princess jumped as well. She tried to keep her flight path steady with outstretched hooves, but it seemed to do nothing against the air. Luna ahead fired a portal against the wall and fired another above that one. She went through the pony-made passage way with ease. The night mare dived out of her blue colored hole and made a straight beeline for the platform below. She landed on the platform with grace and quickly looked around. Above her was a hoop of some sort and next to her was a box of white metal balls. The hoop above has a trigger line that leads to a doorway ahead.

“Sis! Catch this and put it in the hoop!” Luna threw one of the balls towards the white pony.

The ball then teleported in front of Celestia and she caught it with her available hoof.

“You want me to do What?” Celestia shouted.

“Just do a slam-dunk on the hoop above me!”

“Why can’t you do that?”

“It’s too high!”

Celestia rolled her eyes at her sister’s excuse and goes for the hoop. She started to lose altitude fast.

“Come on! Come on!” Celestia strained.

With a deafening shockwave, she slammed the ball through the hoof with a sonic boom. The sound was enough to tremble the game codes and the door opened up for the two sisters. The two of them however didn’t notice it and assumed the hoop opened it.

“Tia. As much as I hate to admit it, that was awesome,” Luna brohoofed her sister. (Or is it sishoofed?)

“Well your older sister does know a thing or two about sports,” Celestia boasted.

“Too bad nopony cares.” A camera popped out from the side of the wall. “Well, the next test awaits.”






Celestia and Luna raced down the seemingly endless hall with an army of robot turrets behind them. The door ahead was slowly but surely closing in on them.

“Come on sis! Faster!” Celestia said.

“You think this is easy? My legs are tired!” Luna huffed.

“I’m cutting your supply of Moon Pies after this is over!”

“Hey if anypony needs a break from snacks, it’s you and those bucking cakes!”

“Less talking! More running!”

Luna ducked down as a laser nearly grazed her starry mane. The tip of her horn wasn’t so lucky.

“My horn!” Luna cried.

Celestia looked at Luna’s simulated burnt tip. She snickered. “It looks bucking good on you Luna!”

“Shut up!”

The two slid underneath the doors Daring Do style and took a moment to breath. Luna looked back to see the door still open and a group of angry turrets still coming after them.

“Oh shit!” She looked around for a button. “Where is it, where is it?!”

She smacked a blue one and the door immediately shuts. Luna leaned against the wall and slides down to the floor. She was just plain exhausted after all that running. Her sister wasn’t looking too hot either as Celestia collapsed on the floor, holding her chest and breathing hardly.

“Forget. The. WII. Sports.” Celestia breathed. “This is more. Than enough.”

Luna laughed at Celestia’s comment. The white console wasn’t that bad to Luna but most of the games that turn up every now and then were of bad quality. The only good ones were ‘Legend of Luna’, ‘Mario’, and ‘Super Smash Ponies Brawl’. She looked at the middle of the room to find a stand at the center. On top of it was a chocolate cake with strawberry toppings and pink candles.

“Oh no, Celestia look.” Luna poked the still body.

“Huh what?” Celestia looked at the direction of Luna’s hoof. “Oh no, is this the end?” she whispered.

“Well we did go through quite a few rooms. Still I can’t believe we’ve finished the game today.”

The two heard GLaDOS from somewhere, humming a tune that sounds dreadfully like a birthday song.

“Humm hum hum hum hum hummmm hum hum hum mmmm hummm hum.”

The two stepped forward to the cake where all of its chocolaty goodness awaits the goddess. Celestia looked at the cake with obvious desire but also has a shine of uncertainty as the cake could mean the end to everything. The sun goddess raised a hoof to have a bit of frosting but held back at the last moment. Luna held her sister’s hoof and looked at her with determination. The two nodded and they set their hooves of the two forks beside the plate. The room suddenly darkened and the walls lifted up to reveal a surprising view to the princesses.

The now expanded room had tens of thousands of tanks filled with ponies. The ponies floated in what seemed to be sea green brine and were peacefully asleep. Luna’s jaw dropped at the sight as she looked at each tank. Celestia herself however didn’t look surprised, and instead focused on eating the long sought cake she had been waiting for.

“Wow. I’m actually impressed. To be honest with you, I never knew this was here. I just assumed this was empty,” GLaDOS voiced echoed. “Look at all these test subjects! They are, beautiful to look at.”

Luna shrugged at the robot’s weird obsession with test subjects. Celestia didn’t listen to what she said and kept chewing.

“And now that you two are here, you will join them.” 

Two mechanical arms suddenly grabbed the both of them and placed them side by side in two empty tanks. Luna banged her hooves at the glass with Celestia swallowed her bite.

“Oh come on! Just let me finish my cake!” she said.

“Sorry, but I think you two had enough testing for one day,” GLaDOS said. “See you two losers in a few weeks.”

Luna’s vision darkened as the game simulated green fluids washing over her body. It kinda felt warm and nice and the night princess was lulled into deep sleep. Her eyes opened once more to find herself back in the waiting room, with the Celestia watching the credits on a movie tarp screen.

“What? That’s it then?” Luna asked.

“Yep, I suppose it is sister,” Celestia dug her hooves into a bag of popcorn.

“Well, I kinda expected, I don’t know, more?”

“So did I. Kinda disappointed. The single player ending was better.” She tossed a few kernels in her mouth.

Luna sat there for a few moments watching the credits and enjoying the music for a while. She looked around the waiting room again and looked at her sister.

“Want to play some custom maps Tia?” Luna asked.

Celestia shrugged. “Sure I guess.”
	
> Chapter 10 - Slendermane (ft. Chaotic Noteworthy, Texas Red, and Alisa)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Remind me again, Chaotic. Why are we here?”  Texas Red whispered, hoping Luna wasn’t listening onto them.

“Because she invited us to a sleepover,” Chaotic quietly responded, a look of glee was clear on his face.

“Well I’m all up for tending to Luna’s needs,” Red mumbled, blowing away the chocolate-brown bangs of his unkempt mane from his eyes. “but… shouldn’t this be kept to mares only?”

“Lighten up, Red. At least we’re getting in touch with our feminine side.”

“You mean you’re getting in touch with it.”

“Same difference.”

Being an Alicorn had many perks, including heightened senses. Senses like super smell could help detect odors police dogs would have overlooked. Super sight could help see things even farther than an eagle could. In Luna’s case, she preferred to use super hearing. Her companions’ attempts to be quiet were being successful as they would probably be unheard by a normal pony, but nothing can truly escape her bat-like senses. Their hushed conversation was no exception.

Although in retrospect, Luna probably should had guessed that Red wouldn’t like to be a part of a sleepover where he gets to have his hooves finely done. Red was the type of strong stallion that lived on masculine morals, making sure to never appear weak or silly in front of a mare with stuff like makeup. However, the green pegasus did seem to enjoy helping her with her ever-flowing mane, getting the chance to feel its ethereal texture while he brushed it.

Luna is no Cadence, but the Night Mare could tell her guard was completely enamored by her. His affection for her was very subtle, but behind every musical piece he usually played for her, behind every moon pie he ever baked for, she could tell that there was a great work of love, sweat, and tears. From the first day the both met, Luna could feel his admiration for her grow stronger and fiercer. His devotion for her was easily comparable to a seemingly calm orchestra patiently waiting for the right moment to sound out their big finale, to explode their music in a fantastic ending. Red was waiting for the perfect moment to reveal his hidden love for her, even though she could clearly see it was there.

His cutie mark literally signified his love for her. It was a full moon with flames emblazoned in the center, with a black moon flower inside the flame that wasn’t being destroyed by the fire. The moon obviously symbolized Luna, while the flames and flower represented his passion. It was a very awe inspiring cutie mark, and had gotten more than few ponies asking him what it meant.

As for Chaotic, his love for Luna was about as eager as a bunny for carrots when he wanted to show his love. He would go ask to come with him to fantastic places around Canterlot as friends, but she could tell that he was really asking her out of a date. Pretty much a forward pony and she had to admit that he could get a bit cute when he gets a little childish. Although, there were times when she thought too much childish was too much. But in a way it was rather endearing, and he had made her laugh more times she could remember in her life. He was somepony that she would like to be around with for a very long time.

The absolutely romantic pegasus and the bright, fun-loving unicorn. Those two would have made a great combo together if they both decided to attack me straight on, Luna confessed to herself as she compared the both of them. It would be nice to start a herd… but I’m still not sure if these two are the ones I’m looking for. Luna heavily sighed with contempt, angry at how indecisive she could be sometimes.

Even after a thousand years, stallions still remained the elusive, mysterious creatures they were. No mare could really understand how they work, and why they found them so extravagating. It was bad enough that Celestia has filled the entire castle with stallions for guards, but Luna also had these two as her personal guards, thus having to see them every day. If they weren’t within her sight, they were most likely hiding in the background, warily watching for anypony that may be a threat to her. As one of the best warriors in her Night Guards, they had the honored privilege to be among the ranks of her Inner Circle of Lunar Knights.

“Red, that’s daffodil-yellow. I asked for starry-gold,” Chaotic nitpicked, upset that the pegasus chose the wrong color of hoof polish.

“Well sorry Chaotic, but I can’t tell the difference between different yellow colors that look the same. I apologize for my ignorance compared to your oh so vast knowledge on colors.”

Chaotic grimaced a bit. “Well yesh, Red. You didn’t have to be like that.”

Red just glared at Chaotic as if he was trying to making lasers come out of his red eyes. Chaotic gave a light, nervous chuckle, a bit discouraged by the pegasus’s angry gaze. Luna slightly shook her head as she felt the intensity in the room increase. This was going to get out of hoof soon if she does do something quick. Red was kind most of the time, but he could get really scary and furious when things don’t his way. Usually, his blazing persona was triggered whenever her felt Luna was being threatened or insulted by any means, but his rage isn’t just limited to that. There are a few other ways that might cause him to go on a rampage.

“Red, did you remember to heat up the mane curlers?” Chaotic asked passively.

“No Chaotic, I didn’t forget,” Red grumbled, fighting the urge to let it grow into a growl.

Yep, this was feeling like one of those moments again. Luna’s mind raced against the situation as it searched for a viable solution to water down the problem. A lot of them came up, claiming to be the answer to the rising dilemma, but most of the scenarios that were played out in her head ended up only either increasing the pressure or being totally ineffective. The idea of playing Truth or Dare would only cause Red and Chaotic to eventually start shouting Truths and Dares at each other, and the makeup session was obviously not working right now. The Pillow Fight option would cultivate into a Pillow War sooner or later, and cooking smores in the fireplace will… well one could imagine what an angry pony could do with a hot, melting marshmallow treat. Most of the ideas in her head were tossed out the window without a second thought, which only left a few ideas left. 

Might as well start with a horror story session, Luna thought dismissively. She held her hoof up for a pause, causing both stallions to stop with their silent bickering. They both looked at her with curiosity, waiting for whatever their beloved mistress of the night has to say. “I think I’m perfectly fine with what I have at the moment. While I do enjoying having my hooves cared for by others, I do want to get on with the sleepover. Do you two agree?” The two stallions looked at each other (with more or less angry eyes) before nodding towards Luna. “Excellent. I know the perfect way to continue our overnight fun,” Luna smiled, relieved to know that things were going according to plan.

“And what would that be?” Red asked.

“Ghost stories!” Luna let out a cute squee.

“Ghost… stories?” Red sounded as if he never heard of ghost stories, but he was only just wondering what made his mistress decide on that. “Well if you insist ma’am, but I’m not exactly the best when it comes to—”

“Ghost stories? I love ghost stories!” Chaotic yelled. “Oh this is going to be so much fun! Hold on, I’ll go get the candles! Be right back!” The thrilled stallion dashed out the room to go scour the castle for the waxy fire holders. Red looked after him with a scowl etched on his face.

To Luna, this was the perfect moment for her to set things right. Compassionately, Luna rested her hoof on the pegasus’s shoulder. He turned towards her with a look of surprise, speculating what else she had to say.

“Red… I know Chaotic can be hard to handle sometimes, but he can be a real sweetheart if get to know him.”

“You knew?” Red looked at the floor as if it caught his attention, but Luna could see a bit of shame in his eyes. “Well Luna… I don’t know if I can get along with him. He’s always irritating me.”

“I know that, but you two only knew each other for just a few days.” Luna nudged him a bit with her nose. “Come on, Red. Give him a chance and try to understand him. Who knows, maybe you two might end up being the best friends.”

“Well… I guess he’s okay sometimes. When he isn’t asking me about every little thing like hoof polish,” Red griped, still not really looking forward to friendly to the energetic unicorn.

“Oh admit it, Red. You know you’re into mare stuff,” Luna playfully teased.

Red frowned for a moment, and then started to giggle up a storm when Luna started tickling him. “C- come on Luna! Be reasonable! I’m supposed to be — Haha! — a serious guard!”

“Tickle, tickle, tickle!” Luna laughed.

“So you guys are having fun without me?”

The two stopped to a standstill when a familiar stallion entered the room.

“I swear you two start the real party after I leave,” Chaotic smirked.

“Well… not really?” Luna had a sheepish smile, embarrassed to be caught like this.

He chuckled a bit. “It’s fine. I’m glad you two are getting closer. Anyway, I was looking around my room when I found my flash drive.” Chaotic dug around his flank pocket (Luna didn’t really question how ponies could have hidden pockets where their cutie marks were at), and brought out a small, thin storage unit for data. “I was just thinking that maybe we could play Slender in place of telling horror stories.”

“You don’t want to tell horror stories?” Luna asked.

“Well I still want too, but maybe we could do that after this? Truthfully, I’ve been waiting for a night like this to show you this game. Have you played it before?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t. What’s it about?”

“Oh it’s a fairly simple game.” Chaotic inserted the flash drive into Luna’s personal computer and turn it on. “All you have to do is go around a forest and collect eight pages. Once you collect them all, you win.”

“Well that doesn’t really sound like fun,” Luna commented.

“Trust me, Luna. This game is anything but boring,” Chaotic confidently claimed.





“Chaotic, what are you doing? Luna is about to start.” While Luna was setting up the game on the computer, Chaotic had pulled Red aside for a bit.

Honestly, the pegasus has no idea what the brash unicorn’s motives are all the time. Usually it would be as something totally innocent like free ice cream, or to undermine a secret coup among the nobles. When Luna said he should try to understand Chaotic, it was pretty much just literally easier said than done. Understand a stallion whose name literally means Chaos? Pretty sketchy if you asked Red about that.

“Well Red, I have an idea. It’s a devious idea.” Chaotic innocently smiled.

Red’s scowl grew even deeper. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I was thinking that we should tease Luna while she’s playing the—”

“Insult her? Why the buck would I want to do that?!” he harshly whispered, interrupting Chaotic. “Look I don’t know what the buck you’re trying to pull but if you so as much hurt Luna’s feelings—” He couldn’t finish the sentence however as he found Chaotic’s hoof over his mouth.

“Dude, hear me out for a moment. I didn’t mean to insult Luna. I meant that we should tease her little things. You know like tap her shoulder when she isn’t looking, point at things at the screen while pretending something is there.”

Red’s eyes narrowed even further. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Yes and no. Slender is a first person horror game where you have to survive long enough to collect all eight pages.” Suddenly blushing deep red, Chaotic nervously started fiddling with his fore hooves together as if he was having second thoughts. “I was thinking that we can use the opportunity get closer with Luna. You know, because the scare factors might cause her to depend on us for comfort.”

“And you really think that… wait did you say we?”

“Y- yes? Don’t you like Luna too?”

Red’s eyes widened at this. He didn’t think Chaotic was the most sharp of all stallions. In fact, Red had met his fair share of stallions that were not so bright in the head. They were mostly down at the pubs he went to when he went out drinking with his fellow guards, all dazed in their drunken state. The pegasus wasn’t really all for drinking, he was just there as the responsible guy to make sure all of his teammates got home safely. Alcohol could put you in quite the dozy mood, and sometimes it would make you do stupid things like pick a fight with the Royal Guards.

However, Chaotic was keen enough to realize Red had feelings for Luna as well! He thought he hid it well enough, unlike the unicorn across him. It looked like he was just proven wrong tonight in not just one case, but two as well. Red had also thought Chaotic wasn’t really the sharing type when it came to having a special somepony, but here he was asking him if he wanted to partake in the bonding exercise that the unicorn had in mind. It was thoughtful, it was generous, and it was brilliant to Red.

“You know what? I think I’m starting to like you,” Red smirked.

Chaotic just simply returned the grin. “Let’s see if Luna’s done installing.”





“So this is the game?” Luna asked, looking at the dark, blank screen on the computer while sitting comfortably from her seat. She stared at the title of the game before pressing on the start button. She couldn’t really remember why, but the name, Slender, tipped a bell in her memory, but it was a weak ring. 

While there were no visuals just yet, the Night Princess could hear somepony in the computer breathing heavily, the being’s voice sounding feminine as she climbed over what seemed to be fences. Suddenly, the screen was lit up brightly from what was implied to be a flashlight, revealing the forest in front of her. The forest was incredibly dense, and very daunting in a hazardous way. Luckily, Luna was placed on a path wide enough so that she didn’t feel claustrophobic in the trees. When she walked around the dim area, she could hear the leaves crunching underneath her like crispy haychips. Her character’s steps sounded like hooves as a faint clop could be heard every time she moved, so Luna assumed she was playing as a mare since stallions let out much bigger sounding steps.

“Yes. All you need to do is to walk around and collect the eight pages scattered around in the forest,” Chaotic confirmed, flashing a light grin at her. He and Red were looking over her shoulder, with the pegasus being in the only other seat in the room. “They’re around some landmarks around here, so it’ll be easy to find them.”

Luna, already suspicious of the game, hummed with doubt at the game’s apparent simplicity. The time setting in the game was night time, the trees were looking a bit more than grim, and her character was seemingly only equipped with a flashlight. The only company she had in the game was the little crickets that were chirping in the background. The growing feeling inside of her was convincing her even more that there was more than meets the eye in this game. All the signs that were screaming in her face were shouting out the now obvious fact that this was a horror game.

Now that I think about it, Chaotic did want me to play this instead of telling horror stories. I can see why he left out the nature of this game, Luna allowed herself a tiny laugh. Very well, I shall humor him then. Let’s just hope he doesn’t chicken out while watching me play. Luna entertained herself with at the thought of Chaotic screaming at whatever horror awaited for them in the game.

She knew he had a light heart when it came to scary games, even though he had made himself to be a hardcore gamer sometimes, but in reality he’s just a lovable softie. Red was more likely to just be surprised once whatever mysterious entity in the game pops out, but he’ll then learn to keep himself calm afterwards.

Suddenly, Luna found herself being pressed up by the pair of stallions on either side of her. They weren’t being forceful, but they were more like leaning on her actually. It was actually quite comforting to her. At least she had two of her friends (who thought of Luna more than friends) beside her in the middle of the night while playing what might possibly be a really scary game. Already, the darkness surrounding her was getting to her, but Chaotic and Red had lightened up the experience, giving her reason to be in her comfort zone.

Soon after fumbling around in the darkness, she found a broken down wagon in the middle of the dirt road. Looking around the side of it, she could see a note taped its wooden planks. There was a scribbled message upon it, as if a foal had hastily wrote on it as if it was a homework assignment the little student had forgot to do at the last moment.

“Don’t look… or it takes you,” Luna read out loud. “Well that doesn’t sound good,” she mumbled. She could feel her left arm being hugged tightly. She peered to the left corner of her eye to see a very worried Chaotic with his closed mouth quivering. Aww. Look at him, Luna cooed inside her mind. He’s like a little colt now.

She clicked on the page with the words of warning, storing the sheet inside whatever inventory her character had. Luna jumped a bit in her seat out of shock as the atmosphere in the game took a sudden turn around the corner from slight caution to full out mind-numbing tension. The music sounded like drums filled with thunder and was seemingly consistent, as if something right now was starting to stalk her. She could imagine the leaves in the trees being rustled from the impending doom that was lurking around in the woods. Luna could feel her heart in her throat wanting to jump out to escape whatever horror was waiting for her. Her forehead beaded with cold sweat.

“It feels like somepony… ” – Luna quickly spun her character around. – “wants to sell me something!”

There was nothing there except for the dark, widespread scenery of the trees. Luna let out a nervous giggle as Red gave her a look that was asking her ‘What was that all about?’, raising one of his eyebrows. Meanwhile, Chaotic was being a blender right now as he was shivering violently out of fear from the sudden outburst Luna had.
“Luna! Don’t scare me like that,” he whimpered.

“Sorry Chaotic,” Luna apologized, attempting to calm the poor stallion down by stroke his mane. Stroke after stroke, Chaotic slowly broke out of his distress and calmed down. “I didn’t mean to startle you like that.” At this point, Luna was trying not to let out a snicker.

At times like this, when Chaotic was being the little softie that he was, Luna felt like he was the little brother she never had. Of course, this ‘little brother’ had a really warm attachment to her, so she couldn’t really bring herself to think like that. On her other side, she could feel Red giving off huge waves of jealousy. He must have felt left out on the attention Luna was giving to Chaotic.

Smiling, she turned around and asked Red, “Do want a hug too?”

Red snapped out of his jealousy state. “W- what?” Red bit his lips a little, his nerves feeling more or less hesitant. “Um… sure. I would love to have a hug from you.” He leaned towards her and wrapped his hooves around her.

After sharing a few moments or two in the little group hug, Luna lightly brushed them off so that she could focus on the game. “Okay, let’s win this,” Luna said with absolute confidence.





“I’m really starting to regret playing this game!” Luna harshly whispered.

Right now, she currently had seven pages in her hooves right now, and was currently running away from whatever was chasing her. So far, the monster’s identity was still a mystery to her, but she could tell it was tall, white, black, and very fast. Everything she looked behind her, all she saw was a white flash in the distance, getting closer and closer with each second. She didn’t look back for very long as her screen would turn into static, so her primary focus now was on staying alive, but even then she could still feel whatever appendages the monster had was hovering over her shoulders. In a metaphorically sense of course, but that didn’t stop Luna from being confused and a tiny bit afraid of whatever was out to kill her in the game.

“Luna, over there! That’s the last page,” Red shouted, jabbing his hoof to where a tall tree was on the screen. 

Luna immediately veered her mouse to the left to where the tree was, and in turn caused her character to face towards it. She then pressed down on the W key with her magic, and smashed Shift to go on a full burst of speed. Her character went from a slow trot to a fast run, heading straight for the tree.

Twenty meters…

The game scared her a bit, but she was the princess of the night! After seeing the last page that she needed, she knew that the prize was just within her grasp: a full victory over the game. All she needed to do was to cover a few more meters and press the sweet mouse button to grab it, and hopefully win the game then.

Fifteen meters…

Oh I just hope this game doesn’t have a twist, Luna prayed. She had played enough games to know that the objectives would sometimes change into something completely different. She hated it when that happens.

Ten meters…

“Almost there!” Chaotic squeaked. He never been this far in the game, so now he was practically covering his eyes at this point to shield them from whatever horrible thing was going to pop out from the screen.

Five meters…

“A-a-and… got it!” Luna victoriously swiped the page from the tree, finishing the game on her first ever try.

She turned around to see if the monster was still after her, but there was not a sign of it anywhere. She turned around again, but the monster wasn’t there either. Slowly, she started to realize that there was something wrong. That creepy feeling was crawling up her back again.

“Guys… is it just me, or did the music stop playing?” Chaotic asked quietly.

Without warning, a loud boom came from the computer and Luna’s character turned around on her own. Luna, shocked at the sudden turn of events, tried to move the mouse, but found the game to be completely out of her control. Luna’s eyes then widened in surprise from what she saw on the screen. It was a pony as tall as Celestia herself, white and in a black, sharp business suit. A blood-red tie wrapped around the collar of its shirt. However, the most unforgettable feature of the monster was the full lack of features on its face. Its face was just a pure white void itself.

Luna couldn’t hear anything else other than the surprised screams coming from the two ponies beside her, and her own mind. While her ears were being abused from the stallions’ terrified yells, Luna’s mind was just swirling in thoughts of their own. What was she to feel at this point; fear or nostalgia? The screen then flickered into static surrender, and then everything went dark.





“And so that’s when Luna kicked us out of her room,” Chaotic summed up.

“Really? Why did she do that?” Alisa asked. She was a snow-white unicorn mare with an adorable, pink, fluffy, silky mane and tail that reminded Chaotic of Luna’s previous style, and the most brilliant sea-blue eyes anypony had ever saw.

“I don’t know. She had a weird look in her eyes, and she didn’t want to talk about it. All I know was that after me and Red stopped screaming… well you know the rest.” Chaotic drew tiny circles in the carpet rug beneath him with the tip of his hoof, embarrassed that he had to retell this story to somepony else.

However, Alisa was a special case. She was just the type of mare that would listen to a stallion, unlike most other mares out in Equestria. Most of them would just brush his voice off and would rather like to talk about themselves. He shuddered to think on how the mares here fit the stereotype of how stallions would act back home in Magistrum. It seemed like the gender roles here were somehow reversed. Almost like an Amarzonian nation. The more naughtier mares of Manehatten, for example, liked to poke fun at stallions with blunt compliments like 'hot flank' or 'I'd tapped that.'  Of course, he slightly expected that from a country where females make up the majority of its population, but it was a just an amusing thought in the beginning.

But Alisa was not like those Manehatten mares from the dark alleys. She was sweet and kind.

“Well it’s getting late, and I need to catch some sleep.” Alisa walked past Chaotic, flashing him a shy smile. “I’ll see you around.”

“Um… yeah. Good night.” Chaotic returned the smile with his.

The stallion trotted through the hallways, making his way to his bedroom. It didn’t take long to find it as it was just around a few corners. Once he was inside, he crashed his body onto the bed and allowed the covers to hug him to sleep. It was a long night, and Chaotic was feeling quite tired from tonight’s events.





“Hello?” Chaotic nervously called out. “Is anypony here?”

He was quite in a sour pickle now. He didn’t know how he got in the dark forest that was surrounding him, but he knew that dark, spooky trees were nothing to laugh at; no matter how many times Pinkie said it was okay to giggle at the ghosties. Terrified out of his mind, he broke into a run in an attempt to escape from the place, but it didn’t take long for him to crash into something. He fell hard on the ground, wincing in pain as he closed his eyes from it.

“OW, watch where you’re going!”

Wait a second. I know that voice, Chaotic thought. “Red, is that you?”

Chaotic quickly opened his eyes to see the familiar pegasus before him, whom looking at him with a surprised expression as well.

“Chaotic? What are you doing here?”

“I- I don’t know! For one moment I was in bed sleeping, and the next thing I know was that I found myself here.”

“Wait… so is this a dream?” Red pinched himself a bit to make sure he was asleep. He winced a little bit, but Red showed no signs of any other change. “I don’t get it. I’m not waking up. Do you think… we’re trapped here?”

“No… we can’t be trapped in here! I don’t wanna be here!” Chaotic quickly pinched himself in a desperate attempt to escape the grim forest, but all it resulted in was pain. “Ow… okay so maybe that wasn’t the best idea.”

“So what are we supposed to do now? We can’t just –” Red cut off what he was just said as he looked past Chaotic. The pupils of his eyes shrunk dangerously, and his breathing quickly shortened into panicky bursts.

“W- what is it, Red?” Chaotic asked, scared to find out what was apparently behind him.

“… Don’t turn around, Chaotic. When I say run… run.”

Chaotic, his fear turning his mind into mush, made a move to peer at what was behind him. “W- why? What’s behind m– OH MY LUNA!” The unicorn quickly scrambled away from the menacing monster that was before him, desperate to get as much distance as he can from the horrid thing. “Y- you’re not supposed to be here! You’re not real!”

The infamous tall, white being in the dark suit that was in front of him was Slendermane. Chaotic was never one to believe in Creepystraw myths, but it never did stop from implanting these fears into his mind. And here was the most intimidating of them all, speaking only silence to the pair as he slowly edged towards them in small steps. Dark tentacles then slowly rose out from underneath Slendermane’s coat, slithering towards the two, fearful stallions. Things were not looking good for them.

“Dude, I think he’s real enough.” Red grabbed Chaotic by the barrel and carried him over his back. “We should get out of here.” He made to turn around, only to be met with Slendermane’s pale, blank face staring at them.

Together, they both let out a terrified scream before Red made a dash in another direction, carrying Chaotic on his back still. They didn’t care where they went as long as it wasn’t towards the unnaturally tall figure. Slendermane didn’t make a move to chase after them and only stood there, watching them run with their tails between their legs. He then let out an unearthly, echoing chuckle, pleased by the enjoyable show the two stallions were giving him.

Soon after the stallions were far away enough, a slim, night-blue Alicorn revealed herself from the trees she was hiding behind. “I assume you’ve enjoyed that?”

“Of course, princess. I always found enjoyment in scaring the mortal minds of your ponies.”  Slendermane’s tentacles retreated back into his body. He considered it to be impolite to have them out during a civil conversation, especially if it was with an old friend. “Consider this to be repayment for the favor you did for me before. Creating the Everfree forest for me was wonderful.”

“Of course,” Luna giggled. “Why did you think I called you here?”

“Well now I assume it would be for this,” he quietly laughed along.

“Say… you haven’t contacted me ever since I got back. You knew that I was released from the moon a few years ago.”

“Well Luna, there was this thing,” Slendermane said in an awkward tone, hinting at how embarrassing this was. “The Everfree forest doesn’t exactly have the best sort of receptions, so I was forced to wait for you to find me first. Plus –” Slendermane let out a few light coughs from his nonexistent mouth. “– I would gather a lot of unwanted attention from the ponies if I were to waltz out of my home. It’s best that I stay as a figment of their imagination rather than be perceived as a true 'threat.'”

“That’s no excuse, Slendy. It’s very rude to keep a mare waiting you know,” Luna teased, cutely sticking her tongue out a little.

The sharply dressed, scary, immortal abomination deeply groaned, feeling a little bit ashamed. He was always known as the most gentlecoltly among his peers back then. “Sorry, sorry. I know.”

Luna giggled a bit at Slendermane’s little discomfort. “Don’t sweat it, Slendy. I’m not angry at you. By the way, I want to thank you for covering my job for a thousand years. It wasn’t exactly the easiest for me to continue governing the dream world alone from all the way on the moon.”

“It was my pleasure to help. Although I suppose that means you owe me a favor as well,” Slendermane chuckled.

“Don’t push your luck,” Luna smirked. “You know you were more than happy to have some more control over the dream world, spreading around more nightmares than there should be.”

“Hey, it’s not like it was my fault that fears are so delicious to me. I couldn’t help but indulge myself. Besides, ponies could always use a little more caution in their steps.”

“Whatever,” Luna laughed again. She looked towards the direction where the stallions were running. She could distinctly hear them yelling out to look for pages. “So how long are you going to keep them here?”

“Until I have my fill of course. It won’t be long. Fear from a stallion is the most delicious and filling, since they don’t normally show them when they’re awake.” Slendermane’s body slowly started to disappear into a cloud of smoke. “Catch ya later.” Slendermane in his smoke form then trailed after the two stallions to absorb more of their appetizing, terrified emotions.

Luna looked on after her friend for a few more moments before stretching her limbs out. She was still getting used to dreamwalking, so she had to stretch her muscles out every once and a while to rid herself of the occasional numb feelings. She then opened a portal that would lead to the next pony she had on her mind.

Hmm. I wonder if Derpy is having those muffin dreams again. She always did like her pastries.
> **Chapter 11 - Prop Hunt**
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Luna? Was this bike here before?”

Before Luna could answer, Rainbow Dash bashed the two-wheeled transport in its side with her rusted iron crowbar, smacking it into the tunnel's brick wall. It clanged loudly as it crashed, sounding very similar to any other metal object in the game. Frowning at Dash's brash act, Luna smacked her hoof against her forehead.

“Rainbow Dash! The bike was there before! Don’t make any hasty decisions!”

“Oops. Sorry.” Rainbow chuckled, testing her crowbar with a couple wild swings through the open sewer air.

“Sorry isn’t going to bring back your health, you know,” Luna scolded her, giving an out of place cabinet a piercing glare, before punishing the hidden player with a shotgun blast.

A cry from Bon Bon signaled Luna’s confirmed kill, as the earth pony’s splintered wood pieces flew everywhere, blown apart by the lethal bullet spread. Lyra comforted her marefriend through the chat, telling her that there will be a next time. After all, it wasn’t the candy maker’s fault that Luna was so good at memory, and hide-and-seek type of games. Well, the Princess of the Night was pretty much a champion at any type of game she played.

“Relax, Luna. Five HP isn’t that much,” Rainbow shrugged absentmindedly, apparently not giving two bucks about her mistake. “Besides, we’re bound to slip up every now and then.”

“Not me,” Luna shot back confidently. She shot Dash a smile, “I’m a goddess at this game.”

“Well that’s kinda obvious, figuratively and literally,” Rainbow laughed, pushing aside some cinder blocks, as they walked pass them. One of them twitched slightly, prompting Rainbow to bash the poor concrete block with her rusty weapon of choice.

Twilight cried out in shock, cursing at herself for moving the mouse slightly by accident. “Darn it, Rainbow Dash! That wasn’t fair! Spike bumped into my chair when that happened! I had at least a eighty-nine percent chance of surviving, if it weren’t for him!”

Rainbow Dash chuckled as she heard a faint objection from Spike through her friend’s microphone. “Oh, I’m pretty sure it was unfair, but that’s how life is, Twi. Unfortunately, there's  no such thing as a do-over when I’m around.”

“There was never a restart button here in the first place, Miss Dash,” Luna sighed heavily, the slight irritation of Dash’s arrogance getting into her head.

“Hey don’t get your controllers in a bundle,” Rainbow sneered, a bit amused at the Moon Princess’ remark. “I’m pretty good at this game too.”

“Whatever,” Luna resigned with a soft exhale. She turned back to look over the rest of the objects in the room, “At least I’m not the one who hits everything she sees.”

“Oh come on! There were a ton of barrels that one time! It’s not like I could automatically figure out which one was a fake.”

“Yes, but was it necessary to hit them all recklessly, when your health was below fifty?” Luna's retort betrayed her growing frustration at the pegasus' impulsive behavior.

“Well… maybe! Yes, no, okay I dunno.” Rainbow flip-flopped on her decision as she looked around at the circular room they were in now, surveying the piles of boxes, cinderblocks, the lone market stand, and litters of trash lying around. “I mean, I guess I could have just taken it slow...”

“And gathered all the barrels into one spot so that we can shoot at them with the shotguns? Because that was a really great idea,” Luna finished for her, as she remembered what her original plan was.

The rest of the players who were still alive as fake props, Pinkie Pie and Applejack, snickered along with the others who had been destroyed.

“Ya know, Ah’m quite surprised Ah made it this far,” Applejack noted, proud of herself for surviving halfway through the match.

“Me too,” Pinkie Pie replied happily. “You always picked something apple related when we’re in this game!”

“S- shut up, Pinkie! No need to give ‘em any ideas!”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve picked another cider bottle again,” Rainbow sighed, as she crossed the room, still on the lookout for anything abnormal.

She gave the row of bottles that were on the abandoned market stand’s counter a look before swing her crowbar across, shattering them all into tiny glass shards. She must have lost at least twenty-five health from that attack, and that didn’t sit well with Luna.

“Dashie,” Luna warned her, pointing at the near-empty health bar above the pegasus' head.

“Oops. I did it again, didn’t I?” Rainbow kicked at one of the intact bottles on the ground which technically didn’t count as an attack.

“Yes. You did.” Luna heard the sneaky, stifled chuckles over the chat, knowing Pinkie and Applejack must have rehearsed this before the game. Or that they were probably texting each other without letting the other players know.

Luna looked at the game’s timer, and saw that there was little more than a minute left. They were running out of time.

“Rainbow Dash. This is the last room we’ve checked, so they have to be in here.”

“Who knows? Maybe we’re in the other rooms,” Pinkie Pie sang out into her microphone.

“Y- yeah. We are,” both Dash and Luna froze for a second, and shared a look.

“Okay. They’re definitely in this room,” Rainbow Dash declared, hearing Applejack stammer clear as a bell.

The apple farmer silently cursed, determined to now not move anything on her table. One slight move of the mouse, or a mistaken press of one of the keys, and she'd be caught before she could cry out for mercy. Like Applejack, Pinkie decided to keep her hooves off the keyboard as well, silently waiting and praying for the clock to run out.

As Luna and Rainbow Dash poked at the objects, it was now exactly one minute left for the game to end.

“Move faster, Dash.” Luna decided to shoot of the crates with her shotgun. It didn’t respond.

“That’s what I’m doing,” Rainbow said through her clenched teeth, kicking at the objects in hope of getting a startled response from her two friends.

The cyan mare walked past one of the objects, and Pinkie Pie covered her mouth to silence a giggle. However, it was already too late, as Rainbow Dash heard it. She quickly turned towards the pile of trash, shuffling the jugs of Windex and metal tin cans around. One of the dirty cans smacked its body against the concrete ground, but it didn’t make a solid clank.

“Run, Pinkie Pie! Run!” Applejack yelled, urging the party mare to escape.

The party mare pressed one of her movement keys at random, desperate to skedaddle out of there the best she could with her tiny, tiny metal body. However, it was inevitable, as death came for the pink pony. Rainbow Dash scored a home run with her crowbar, sending Pinkie's can-form all the way across the room, to the end of the tunnel.

“Aw poopy! I had it! I had it!” Pinkie Pie cried out, sad that she didn’t elude the pair of hunters.

“Sorry that had to happen, Pinks,” Rainbow Dash said, although pleased with her kill. “But winning is my middle name.”

“You can say that after you find me,” Applejack responded happily, glad to know that there were only twenty seconds left. “Ah have all the time Ah need.”

“Don’t get too cocky, Applejack,” Luna warned the mare. She looked around the room quickly, “We will find you.”

And they tried their best, but with only a few seconds remaining, they couldn’t help but smack at everything. The crates broke down, but didn’t show any signs of the red blood that would come out from a player disguised as a fake prop, and all the pieces of trash and litter were accounted for.

“Argh! This is hopeless!” Rainbow Dash groaned. Applejack laughed as there were only ten seconds left.

The brash mare was about to leave the room in anger, until Luna spoke, “Hey Dash. Come over here real quick.”

Rainbow's ears perked up. She ran over to the corner where the Night Princess was. Behind the pile of cinderblocks, sat a lone bottle of apple cider.

“I don’t recall ever seeing such a glass container in this spot. Do you, Rainbow Dash?”

The Element of Loyalty shook her head. There was nothing but silence in the chat.

“Why is everypony –” Luna relentlessly shot the bottle dead “– not saying anything?!”

In golden words, the game congratulated the winners, Luna and Rainbow. Twilight, Lyra, Bon Bon, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack all moaned in disappointment while the blue duo cheered.

“Tartarus yeah! That was awesome!” Rainbow Dash yelled out in joy, pumping her hooves in the air.

“Good game, good game!” Luna agreed, rearing up on her hind legs and waving her hooves in the air. She sat back down on her chair, getting herself comfortable before asking, “So, next map?”

There was a chorus of agreement among her friends, telling Luna it was okay to bring up the voting list for the next map's selection.
> Chapter 12 Part 1 - BioShock Infinite [Sandcroft]
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



So... spoilers. Just warning you.






"Yeah, I know Sand, but I'm busy right now. I just got BioShock Infinite."

"C'mon Luna, we're all here."

"Yeah Luna, don't let us down, we just need one more party member!"

Luna's hoof connected with her forehead softly. "Sentinel, Sand, sorry. You know how long I've put this off."

Ignoring the two's shouts of protest, she left the chat party they had invited her to. They had wanted her to join them to play a few episodes of Spartan Ops in Halo 4. It was only natural that she would say no, given how she just got the game that cleaned up at E4 when it came out.

Without any further hesitation, she popped the disc out and put it in the console. She donned the I.P.V. and waited to be whisked away to the city of Columbia.





Princess Luna was standing on a balcony, looking out into a street filled with various ponies lounging and conversing in the sun. The glare from the giant orb bloomed in her vision, prompting her to put up a hoof to ward away its light. Music could be heard faintly playing from one of the stores.

A shimmer caught her attention and took it to a sign high up on a building to her left. What had once been an advertisement for a store's prices shifted to be a menu with a few options. She chuckled at its novelty and flew up to press the option that read "Main Game."

Another odd sound reached her ears and she looked down to the right. Another sign changed. She flew down and trotted the last few steps in excitement. She pressed the button to start a new game, then let her body be pulled into the glare of the sunlight; the smile never left her face.






"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist..."






The sound of thunder echoed in her ears. The small raft she was in swayed in the storm and water would occasionally splash up over the edges of the wood. She could barely make out a lighthouse spinning in the distance; they were headed straight for it.

"Are you going to just sit there?" came the voice of the stallion rowing the boat. He was dressed in a yellow raincoat, the hat of which obscured his face.

"As compared to what? Standing?" replied the voice of the mare sitting directly in front of Luna. She was dressed identically to the stallion, including the hidden face.

"Not standing, rowing," the stallion said quickly. The two had slightly refined accents, similar to Rarity's from Ponyville.

"Rowing? Hadn't planned on it."

"So you expect me to shoulder the burden?" the stallion asked. In the middle of his sentence, the mare turned slightly and passed Luna a polished wooden box. A golden placard on the top read "Property of Booker DeWitt, 7th Cavalry, Wounded Fetlock."

So Booker DeWitt was her name. Part of the cavalry, apparently; a large honor. And she had learned that the battle of Wounded Fetlock had occurred while she was... away. According to the history books, it wasn't Equestria's finest moment.

"No, I do expect you to do all the rowing." The two's bickering reminded Luna of her and Celestia's conversations when they were younger. Perhaps the two were siblings.

"And why is that?" questioned the stallion.

"Coming here was your idea," shot back the mare.

"My idea?"

"I made it very clear that I don't believe in the exercise."

"The rowing?"

"No. I imagine that's wonderful exercise."

"Then what?"

"The entire thought experiment."

This is a development, thought Luna. What exercise could they be talking about then? Her questions took a back-seat as they approached the lighthouse.

"Um, excuse me?" Luna held up a hoof. "How much longer?"

Her question was ignored by the two, quite rudely she might add, as they continued on with their cryptic conversation.

"One goes into an experiment knowing one could fail," said the stallion, quieter this time.

"But one does not undertake an experiment knowing one has failed."

What could they be talking about? What experiment? And how could you fail before even beginning?

Luna tuned them out for a moment as she opened the box and examined its contents. The first thing she noticed was the conspicuous repeating pistol on the top. She grabbed it quickly, loaded a bullet into the chamber, and holstered it. She picked up a picture of a girl and flipped it over. Written on the back in fancy hoof-writing was "Bring to New York unharmed." So this must be my mission. Find the girl. Sitting in the bottom of the box sat a few silver coins, a large, ornate key, and the bearings for New York.

On the flip-side of the lid there was a drawing of a scroll, a key, and a sword, with a few numbers scribbled by each. Next to the drawing was a little advertisement of some sort for Monument Island, probably where she would find the girl in the picture. Seeing nothing else in the box, she closed it and set it on the bench next to her.

"...greater interest in getting there than I do," came the voice of the mare. They had been talking about her.

"I suppose she does, though there's no point in asking." Luna was pleased to see that the game recognized that she was a mare and not a stallion, as the name Booker DeWitt would suggest. Although she hoped that it didn't impede progress of the game.

"Why not?"

"Because she doesn't row."

"She doesn't row?"

"No, she doesn't row."

"Ah. I see what you mean."

Before she had time to wonder what the odd couple were implying, the boat pulled up to a small shack next to the island that the lighthouse was built on. "We've arrived," said the mare, still without turning around.

Luna checked she had everything she needed with her, then climbed up the ladder to the dock. She looked up at the lighthouse. It was foreboding, in a sense. The rain pelted her coat, soaking through the thin vest and shirt she wore. She got so absorbed in scrutinizing the lighthouse, that she didn't notice the pair rowing away, saying something about how it didn't matter what they told her.

"Hey, wait! Is someone meeting me here?!" she shouted to the departing two.

"I'd certainly hope so," said the stallion.

"It does seem like a dreadful place to be stranded," added the mare.

And they disappeared back into the storm.

"Those two are really weird," Luna murmured to herself. She looked toward the steps leading into the lighthouse. "I really hope somepony's inside..."





"OF THY SINS I SHALL WASH THEE," read a stitched sign mounted on the main support beam inside the lighthouse. Luna peered into the small washbowl placed on a table below, gazing at her reflection. For some reason, she felt inclined to pass up the washing. Something deep within her screamed that it wouldn't help anything.

She walked up the stairs, calling out to check if anypony was there. She heard her own voice echo back to her. As she reached the next floor, she heard a radio playing an old-sounding song. Her eyes glazed over the various maps and pieces of parchment that littered the wall and desks around her. She switched the radio off as she walked by it.

Going up the next staircase, she noticed a bloody hoofprint on the wall. Her breath and pace quickened slightly, and she got to the next floor. The area had been ransacked; books strewn about, furniture misplaced, and the walls bare. But what drew her attention was the deceased pony sitting tied-up in a chair, surrounded by a pool of blood. She gasped and ran over.

A bag was over his head and a sign hung from his neck that had "Don't disappoint us" written on it in blood. She silently backed away from the scene and walked up the next flight of stairs.

"Whoever has sent me here definitely wants the job to be done..." she said to herself. So far the lead-up to the game played up the suspense. She suspected that whatever lied at the top of the lighthouse would take her to Columbia.





"3... 2... 1... Ascension. Ascension."

Luna was panicking. She hadn't anticipated the fancy chair suddenly turning into a screaming metal death-trap. Now she had lost her pistol and was rocketing into the sky through the storm clouds. She gritted her teeth and held on to whatever she could, despite being strapped into the chair.

But then the rough ride stopped and sunlight streamed across her face. And what she saw took her breath away.

Columbia, the City in the Sky.

Smoke drifted lazily upwards from the chimneys of the flying buildings, intermingling with the puffy clouds that obscured some of the green land far below. Several fireworks burst in the air below her pod and streamed colors across the sky. A suspension bridge spanned the gap between two parts of the city, and a massive golden angel loomed above it all.

The pod Luna was in shook suddenly as she heard a parachute unfurl into the air. Her descent slowed as she drifted past a few buildings to land on some sort of platform that lowered her down under the pavement.

Through gaps in the machinery she could make out a huge stained-glass mosaic of a stallion holding out a hoof to lead the ponies around him to the glowing city in the clouds above them. "'The seed of the Prophet shall sit the throne and drown in flame the mountains of civilization...'" Luna murmured to herself as she pondered the meaning.

She reached the bottom and the clasps holding her to the chair undid themselves. The pod's door burst open with a hiss of steam and clicking gears, then lowered down into the ground. She was in what looked like a church, clearly worshiping the graying stallion Father Comstock. Her hooves splashed through the inch or so of water that covered the stone floors, interrupting the song floating gently in the air.

She walked around the chambers she had entered. On the left side was a stained-glass mosaic of a mare, no doubt the mate of Father Comstock. On the right was the couple holding a foal, the "lamb." She walked back to the center and noticed that she was not alone.

"Hey, how do I get into the city?" she asked the white-robed stallion.

"Only the cleansed may gain passage into the Columbia, friend," he said with an amiable, if creepy, smile.

"Ooo-kay." Freaked out slightly, Luna made her way down the spiraling staircase at the back of the room, taking into the windows set into the wall; the sword, the scroll, and the key. She gasped in surprise as she reached the bottom and suddenly dropped in a pool of water reaching to almost the top of her long legs. The section of the stretching hallway she walked down was lined by candles floating in the water, and she could see more white-robed figures making their way to the end of the hall, where a bunch of them had gathered.

She increased her pace, curious to see what the commotion was. As she got closer, she began to hear an elderly stallion's voice shouting excitedly. She stopped just outside the circle formed around him and considered her options for a moment. I can't just go in fighting, and there doesn't seem to be any other path to get into the city...

She forced her way into the circle and called to the stallion priest. "Is this the way into the city?"

"The only way into the city is to be baptized, newcomer! In the name of our Prophet, and the name of our Lord!"

"Well, it's either this or getting back on that rocket..." Luna muttered before taking the outstretched hoof of the priest.

He yanked her to the side with surprising strength. "I baptize you: in the name of the Prophet, in the name of our founders, in the name of our Lord!"

He put a hoof to her forehead and forced her head down into the waters. Luna, taken by surprise from the sudden action, panicked and thrashed around. The hoof disappeared for and moment and she came back up coughing and spluttering.

"I don't know, brothers and sisters, but this one doesn't look clean to me!" The hoof came back and shoved her under the water, where she quickly ran out of breath and faded into unconsciousness.


> Chapter 13 - Battlefield 4: Siege of Shanghai [Sandcroft]
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



Written by Sandcroft







BOOM!

The sound of the shot echoed and rebounded across the buildings that stretched up into the sky. Still staring down her scope, Luna watched as the small dot that was her bullet fly straight across the small sliver of ocean that divided the map into two parts. It flew true, and drove itself through the head of an opposing sniper laying down on the building far across from her.

Luna grinned as she pulled back the bolt and allowed another bullet to load into the chamber, ready to take out another enemy. The two snipers had been exchanged shots for a few minutes, neither getting the bullet drop degree quite right, as the distance was well over 500 meters.

She lifted a hoof up to adjust her scope to zoom to 40x magnification, looking at Flag D, which was under control of the enemy team. She spotted a few enemy support soldiers setting up light machine guns across the roof of the building, preparing to mow down anyone that got near.

"Luna! Do you see us?" crackled a voice through her radio.

She jumped, forgetting that she had squadmates at all. Reaching a hoof back, she clicked a small button on the radio and checked her minimap. "I see you, Twilight." She shifted her sniper to the left and looked down at a bridge spanning the gap to the center of the map. Looking back in the scope, she saw four familiar ponies, one purple one with a designated marksman rifle waving up at her.

"Can we just get a move on? We're about to start losing!" came a more brash voice from the radio. Through the scope, Luna could see a rainbow-maned pegasus with a submachine gun trotting in place impatiently.

"Ah don't want to go running in there with no plan, Rainbow. That's just asking to be killed," retorted Applejack, who was laying on the ground, aiming down the sight of a light machine gun.

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's just go bring the party to them!" shouted Pinkie Pie through the radio. Luna could see the pink mare load a rocket into an RPG and take aim at the building housing Flag D.

"Pinkie, wait!" Twilight began to shout, but Pinkie had already pulled the trigger, sending the rocket flying.

The group held still and watched the explosive blaze a path through the sky. It wobbled around in its course, being the hardest weapon to aim in the game, but somehow managed to still impact the building. Five ponies watched in stunned silence as part of a billboard on the building collapsed and formed a makeshift ramp to get up to a ladder to the roof.

"Come on! They might not have noticed!" With the words, Rainbow dashed off in a flurry of feathers, heading straight for the building.

"How could they not notice!? It was a RPG!" Twilight screamed in frustration to her overconfident friend. Then, in a normal voice, "Luna? Could you make sure she doesn't get blown up?"

"Sure thing, Twilight." Luna stood up and folded in the bipod on her sniper. She took a moment to look over it. A SRR-61, with bipod, muzzle brake, ballistic scope (40x), variable zoom (14x), a range finder, and a cool hexagon adaptive camo that changed colors with different maps. It was practically the only gun she ever used, not counting her trusty M1911 classic pistol.

She moved down the corner of the building she was on and laid down again, setting up camp a second time. She shot a quick glance to the elevator to make sure her claymore was still there, which it was, then began to readjust her sniper. Aiming through the smoke of the fallen building at the center of the map, the range finder telling her it was 454 meters away from her position. Frowning, she clicked the bullet drop zeroing distance up to 500 meters, making the decision to aim a bit lower than usual to compensate.

She zoomed in on the first pony on the rooftop, a large, heavy trooper that had set up his gun on the raised edge of the building to aim down the street. "Alright, squad leader, sniper support is online." Luna grinned into the gun as her crosshairs lined up with the pony in sight.

"Thanks Luna. Rainbow Dash! What did I tell you—" the radio cut out as Twilight took her hoof off the button.

Looking through the sights, she noticed the stallion suddenly snap his eyes down onto the street approaching the building. Just before he had a chance to tell his teammates that there was a squad launching an attack on their Flag, a bullet whizzed through his head, leaving him slumped over his gun.

Not pulling the bolt back on her gun yet, Luna watched as the three or four other ponies on the rooftop suddenly hit the deck in an attempt to make sure they weren't the sniper's next victim. "Alright, girls, I've got their attention. You're good to go for now, but I'll keep an eye out."

"You're the best Luna! Keep it up!" shouted Applejack through the radio. Luna risked a moment to see what her squadmates were doing down on the ground. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were rushing towards the building still, running for the large entrance on the side to get up on the second story. In the meantime, Applejack had set up a mortar station while Twilight kept watch with her DMR for anypony that would try to interrupt AJ's bombardment of the building.

Luna zoomed out and then back in on the roof. The enemy soldiers had poked their heads up again and were ready to start taking pot-shots at Twilight and Applejack.

BANG!

Another soldier collapsed with a new hole in his head, courtesy of Luna's rifle. She chuckled as she tugged out the magazine of the gun and loaded in a fresh one. As soon as she looked back down the scope, she noticed that one of the soldiers had turned tail and was trying to make a jump down through the glass panels in the ceiling they were on. "Going so soon?" Luna taunted as she shot him through the barrel, causing his body to fall down and shatter the glass.

"Whoa! Luna! Was that you? It almost hit me!" shouted an astonished Rainbow Dash through the radio.

"All in a day's work, comrade," Luna said in her best accent, prompting a few giggles to crackle through the radio.

She looked back up in her scope to see mortars flying down through the glass panels, courtesy of Applejack's launcher. Luna pulled her head back from the gun and watched as the flag turned neutral, then began to build to blue, signifying Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash's capture.

"This is going remarkably smoothly," Luna said as she looked down the gun again, zooming out to the 14x magnification. "If we could keep this up for the rest of the flags, I bet we could—" The words died out in her throat as something large and metal reared up in her vision, filling her sights completely.

Luna gasped and stood up, taking in the fact that she was staring directly at a AH-6J Little Bird. And it was not friendly. Reacting quickly, she grabbed her gun and galloped as fast as she could towards the chimneys and AC units near the elevator of the building. She heard the helicopter's blades spin faster as it gained altitude. Then, the guns revved up.

Machine gun fire ripped through the air next to her and perforated the roof of the building. She stumbled a bit as she ran, thankfully dodging all the bullets. "Luna! Where'd you go! We're taking fire from the roof again, and enemies are starting to parachute into the building! Pinkie and Dash won't be able to hold out for too long!" came Twilight's voice from the radio.

She took cover behind the concrete chimneys, breathing hard. She threw the sniper rifle over her back and unstrapped her pistol, as if it would do any good. Her ears twitched as she heard the sounds of the helicopter fly to the side, then fade out. She let out a sigh, but didn't relax completely. "There's a helicopter on my tail, hold on."

Just as the words left her mouth, the metal behemoth appeared again, popping up from below to her right. "Rrgh!" she grunted as she squeezed off a few useless shots at the heavily armored chopper. It's guns revved up again and fired at her, but she ducked behind cover before it had a chance to hit her.

She could almost hear the pilot cursing as he flew away again, trying to get in a good position to fire at the elusive mare. Luna leaned her head around the corner and watched as it went below the roof again, disappearing from sight.

She was ready to give up and retreat down the elevator, but, just then, an idea hit her. A crazy, stupid idea that she just might be able to pull off.

Luna clicked the button on the radio. "Hold on, girls, I've got an idea."

"Whatever it is, could you hurry it up! We're taking too much fire over here!" hollered Applejack through the device.

Luna ran to the edge of the building, looking down and scanning the surroundings. "Come on, come on," she muttered under her breath as she withdrew her sniper rifle again.

Her ears flicked to the side as they picked up the sounds of helicopter blades turning. She snapped her head to the right and watched the aircraft slowly round the corner of the building. Luna brought up her sniper rifle and took aim, quickly punching the zeroing distance back to zero. Her crosshairs lined up with the pony sitting confidently in the cockpit. Luna took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

The bullet shot straight through the supposed bullet-proof glass and tore through the chest of the pony flying the helicopter. Yes! Luna screamed internally as she thanked her good luck. But that was only half the plan.

The helicopter slowly began to descend, its rotors coming to a stop quickly with no pilot to force their motion. Luna threw her sniper rifle over her back, took a breath, and leaped off the building. She shot down through the air, aiming directly for the falling aircraft. It tilted over on its side, giving her an open shot for a door.

At the last second, she spread her wings open and drastically slowed her descent. Still, she was going fast, and as a result slammed into the cold metal. Shaking off the pain of the impact, she climbed inside the metal machine, threw out the dead pilot, whom she recognized as the sniper she was dueling with earlier, and began to take control of the weapon. 

She tugged up on the throttle, taking the aircraft out of a steep dive. The rotors kicked back into gear as she pulled out and took off into the sky, aiming directly for the building of Flag D.

"Luna!" came a nervous voice from the radio, "Now would be a really good time to help!"

Luna cleared the smoke in the center of the map and got a look at what was going on. Applejack and Twilight were holding down a small area partially hidden underneath the bridge, taking and returning fire from a good 5 enemy soldiers on the roof of Flag D. She couldn't see Rainbow and Pinkie, but their arrows on the minimap were hardly moving, besides going back and forth down a hallway in the building.

"Need a hoof?" asked Luna, flying into the fray, directly over the heads of Twilight and Applejack.

"Yee-haw! Go Luna!" whooped Applejack into the radio.

"Luna, someday you will tell us how you managed to steal a helicopter from the enemy, while they were attacking you with it," said an impressed Twilight breathlessly.

Luna pushed a few buttons on the console and the guns on the helicopter revved up. The enemies on the rooftop, realizing they were outmatched, scrambled to get off the roof or run back inside the building. But, they were too slow. Whatever ponies Luna didn't catch with the canons were caught in the bulletstorm from Applejack and Twilight's guns down below.

When they were finished with the outside of the structure, Luna quickly descended and allowed Twilight and Applejack to climb on board. "Take us up, Luna, directly over the glass panels on the roof." Luna obliged and flew over the roof. "Are you ready AJ?" Twilight looked at the orange mare, who had strapped on a parachute upon entering the aircraft. She nodded her agreement. "Pinkie, Dash? Backup's coming in right now."

She shot a nod to Luna, then jumped out the open door of the helicopter, Applejack immediately following suit. Luna watched as they flew down through the glass panels, narrowly missing the sides. Twilight extended her wings and glided to a quick stop, soaring into the destroyed remains of a clothing store. Applejack tugged on the parachute and followed Twilight in, where they met up with Pinkie and Dash.

"Alright, girls, let's light 'em up," said Luna into the radio as she took the Little Bird down to look into the side of the building. She fired up the guns as her four squadmates ran out into the open, guns blazing. The few ponies that were left over in the capture area were quickly wiped out as the squadron took over.

Luna put down the helicopter and climbed out, strapping C-4 to the underbelly of the weapon just in case anypony on the enemy team tried to reclaim it. She withdrew her pistol and galloped into the badly destroyed building, joining her squadmates in defensive positions around the flagpole.

"That was some wicked flying, Luna," Rainbow Dash held out her hoof quickly for a bump from Luna.

"Thanks, Rainbow. You did a good job in here with Pinkie." Luna pounded her hoof against Dash's with a smile.

The Equestrian flag reached the top of the pole unhindered, as no opposition came to challenge the team of five as they captured the point.

"Game," said Luna, looking down as the enemy's respawn ticket counter clicked down to zero.

“Over.”