MLP-FiM Plays PKMN-MMORPG

Chapters

Installing The Game
Trying Out The Game
Friends Of The Game
Playing The Game

Installing The Game

The soft rays of the morning sun grac—oh never mind. Let's just skip those lame and boring intros.

It was morning. Sky was clear. Ponyville citizens trotted here and there and everywhere. And oh, a purple pony stood in front of the Golden Oaks Library's wooden door. There! Now we can start the story.

Said purple pony was none other than Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Although a princess, the citizens of Ponyville appeared to be...ignoring her, as they continued moving along the earthy roads and pathways to their destination. A visiting pony from another city would be shocked at the ignorance of the town's citizens, but Twilight, after being crowned Equestria's new princess, spent two whole months trying to convince the townsponies to still treat her like they always did. She preferred it that way.

Anyway, with a smile, she took a breath, and exhaled, and then, with magic, she ope—the door's locked. She arched an eyebrow. Oh well, nothing like a simple lock-picking spell can't handle. Hearing a click!, she then pushed the door open, and immediately, the smell of old paper struck her nostrils. Oh, how she missed that stinky smell.

“Spike! I'm home!”

“Gaaahhh!” somedragon gasped in shock, and immediately, there was a series of loud clicking noises.

“Spike?” Twilight called, trotting towards the stairs where she could see the frantic baby dragon on the second floor near the stairs, furiously clicking onto something.

Hearing the alicorn trotting up the stairs, Spike ignored the stinging sweat that ran on his eyes as he jumped off of his seat, and pulled the plug. As soon as the monitor screen died, Twilight reached the second floor wearing a curious frown.

“What are you doing?”

“Uh,” Spike gulped, and quickly threw the AVR's plug to the wooden floor.

“And why are you sweating like that?” she asked, looking around. “Is the AC broken again?” She returned her attention to the nervous baby dragon. “And why are you still wearing the headphones?”

“Uh... Eheheheh...” he chuckled nervously as he removed the headphones and placed them on his chair. He wiped a claw on his sweaty forehead. “Um...welcome home?”

“‘Welcome home’ indeed,” Twilight rolled her eyes before turning around and trotted back down the stairs. “I hope you made some breakfast Spike, 'cause I'm really starving...”

Spike sighed in great relief that he wasn't caught by her. He eyed his year-old computer with a soft glare. “One day, you're gonna put me in trouble...” With that, he hurried down the stairs after his sister. “I left some pancakes in the oven. I wonder if they're still hot though...”

During their breakfast, somepony knocked on the door. Spike opened it, and on the other side was the mail delivering crewponies, with a large brown box beside their four-wheeled van. Spike signed some papers, and the ponies brought the box inside the library, said their goodbyes, and rode their van to deliver some other things to other ponies in town.

“Oh!” Twilight poked her head from the dining area to see what it was. Noticing the box, she smiled wide. “Derpy Deliveries really are fast!” She swallowed the last of her pancakes, and walked towards the box as she chewed.

Spike was reading the paper that was given to him. “Wow Twilight! You bought a new PC!”

“Of course!” Twilight beamed as she used her magic to open the box and carefully levitated the contents. “I did say so last week that I'm going to buy another one. We can't share one PC, I'm afraid.”

“No kidding...” Spike mumbled to himself.

“So, you want the old one or this new one.”

“Old one!” Spike immediately replied. “I uh...kinda grew...attached to the old one... Eheheheh...”

“Oh, uh, okay then,” Twilight smiled. “Would you mind helping me set this up?”

Spike smiled.

The new PC stood proudly beside Twilight's bed. With the flick of the switch, the PC booted up, and Twilight sat on her bed, facing her new PC that finally displayed her desktop.

“Now to figure out what the fuss is about...” she mumbled to herself as she used her magic to move her mouse to point at the internet browser. Double clicking with magic, a new window opened, and she magically typed the topic she wanted to research about.

“About what, Twi?” Spike asked, moving a piece of the hearphone behind his ear so he could listen to the alicorn while still be able to hear the sounds of the LoL match he was busy with. He gritted his teeth when his avatar accidentally stepped on another invisible mushroom bomb, killing his avatar instantly. “Damn it! Those things need to be nerfed!”

“Still playing that game, I see...” Twilight chuckled. “Does that game even have a finish line? You've been repeating that very same area ever since I bought that computer.”

Spike ignored her. No matter how many times he explains the game, Twilight seemed to forget about it by next week. So why bother? Instead, he chose to ask her something while waiting for his avatar to respawn. “Anyway, so why did you bought a new PC other than us being able to own one?”

“Well, I sent you a letter about Rainbow Dash who suddenly decided to check up on me during one of the inventions conventions in Manehattan, right?”

“Yeah, that was on Tuesday, I think...”

“Well, she kept talking and talking about this new game called ‘monsters in your pockets’ or something, and she—”

“You mean Pokémon?” Spike interrupted.

“Uh, yeah, that. Anyway, she kept talking and talking about how cool the ‘monsters’ were, these different types and battle mechanic and strategy and some other things... Long story short, many ponies in the convention heard her, and before I knew it, the inventions convention turned into a ‘ask Rainbow Dash about Poke-a-mon’ and kept asking for her friend invites...”

“Well...”

“Ah, here it is.”

“You found it? Good! Now to concentrate on the game.”

“Let's see here...”

The page was flashy, yet simple at the same time. Twilight's no newb of the computer or internet, by the way, so she immediately clicked on the ‘Game Overview’ of the page. Once the page was loaded, Twilight immediately began reading it.

“Okay... Pokémon MMORPG... Introduction... Pokémon MMORPG is an online role-playing free-to-play game wherein players are to train the wide variety of monsters called ‘Pokémon’. Trainers, that's you player!, can collect to as many creatures as they want, but can only carry six creatures during their travel. Each trainer's main goal is to train monsters, collect the eight badges of different regions, and compete and win in the region's Pokémon Tournament League. What's more, trainers can interact with other online trainers! You and a friend, or a random stranger, can compete, trade, and party with each other as you explore the mysterious world of Pokémon. Meh, sounds boring...”

“Don't knock it 'til you try it!”

“AHH!!!” Twilight jumped, startled.

Rainbow Dash laughed. “Oh Celestia, you should have seen your face Twilight!”

“R-Rainbow Dash!? When did you get here?”

“Oh, just a few minutes ago, through the usual,” she shrugged.

Twilight looked up, and saw an open window, where her pet owl was sleeping on the frame.

Rainbow sat on the bed and leaned to the monitor. “Neat! So, you gonna try it?”

“Uh, no... It doesn't really...” she paused when Rainbow Dash suddenly pouted. “...um...it doesn't...really...” sparkly eyes. Twilight groaned. “Ugh, fine!”

“Yes!” Rainbow punched the air in victory. “A new trainer buddy! This is gonna be so so awesome!” She wrapped a hoof on Twilight's neck and pulled her into a half-hug. “Just don't be as pathetic as Fluttershy and Rarity, okay Twilight?”

“They play this game?”

“Well of course!” Rainbow grabbed the mouse and clicked the ‘Download’ link, and waited for the page to load. “It's like, the popular game ever!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Leave it to Rainbow Dash to know all about the cool and awesome and popular games around.

“AJ and Pinkie are great trainers,” the pegasus said as she clicked the ‘Download and Install’ button. “Rarity and Fluttershy, on the other hoof, are very lame... I mean, come on!” she groaned as she clicked the many ‘Yes’-es buttons and checkboxes and other stuff ‘normal’ ponies never actually read. “Rarity only goes online to advertise her dresses, and Fluttershy's busy ‘spreading the word’ that capturing and training Pokémon are animal cruelty. I mean, come on! It's just a game of pixels and...other pixels! It's not like it can harm real life animals or something!”

Rainbow Dash finally let go of the mouse when the installing window appeared, displaying that the game is being downloaded while installed at the same time. She tossed a smile at her purple friend, and blinked when she noticed her blank expression.

“Er...” she chuckled awkwardly. “Sorry if I ranted, Twi.”

“It's...no problem?”

“But as I was saying,” Rainbow lied down on the bed on her back, and let out a relaxed sigh. “Those two are boring to play with. Applejack's awesome. Sure, she advertises her farm products like a gold seller, but she's a very good partner in adventuring! And she has an awesome lineup of Pokémon! Pinkie, in the other hoof, is crazy! I mean, I can bet that she can beat an entire Elite Four with one Magikarp! Really though, she uses random lineups, and can still stay awesome!” She chuckled, and then turned to see Twilight's confused smile. “You have no idea what I'm talking about, huh?”

“W-well uh...”

“Look, Twi,” Rainbow sat up, and placed her hoof on the alicorn's shoulder. “It's a great game! Trust me. You're gonna love it.”

“W-well... Um...”

The two ponies heard a ‘successful’ tone from Twilight's speakers. The two ponies turned and saw a ‘congratulatory’ messaged pop-up on the monitor screen.

Rainbow blinked. “Wow Twi. You must have a crazy good connection! Took me almost two hours to download the game back in my place.” She then flapped her wings, and hovered in the air. “Anyway, I better head to the weather HQ. Don't wanna be late!” she angled herself at the open window. “We can play after my morning shift, Twi! I think I can only spare an hour today before I head to the Wonderbolt Academy. But tomorrow's Sunday! No work and school, so we can go and train together for one whole day!” She brought a hoof to her chin. “Unless if there's another stupid giant monster rampaging in a random city like last week...” She shook her head. “Anyway, as the great trainer always say, smell ya later!”

Rainbow then flew out of the window like a bullet, startling the owl awake.

“Wow...” Twilight shook her head with a smile. “I've never seen her so happy and excited for a long time!” She then returned her attention to her computer. “Well, okay then. I'll give this game a shot.”

“If you have questions, Twilight, you can ask me,” Spike said without removing ninety-eight percent of his attention from the game, despite the fact that his team were clearly going to lose. They already lost all of their towers, while the other team still have...everything. “I play that game once in a while, so yeah.”

“Thanks Spike,” Twilight smiled as she hit the ‘play’ button.

Author's Note

Er, no...
I don't play LoL, but I do enjoy watching my youngest brother play that game.
He dominates the game with that cute character that plants mushroom landmines. :3

Trying Out The Game

“Welcome to the world of Pokémon.”

An adventurous theme music played as the screen flashed from black to white, and then slowly changed into a wonderful scenery where tree-filled hills rolled as far as the eyes could see. Tall mountains stood where the hills appeared to have ended, and pure white clouds rolled peacefully in the blue sky.

Chirping noises suddenly echoed, louder and louder, and soon, the scene changed, following many different flying creatures Twilight has never seen before. The scene changed to a grassy field where different earth-bound creatures grazed and played. The scene changed once again, this time under the sea, where many sea creatures swam in different directions.

The screen then slowly faded into black, and when the screen went totally black, a more peaceful music played as the screen slowly brightened, and finally flashed a stand-still full-screen image of a peaceful town. Then, in the middle, a window appeared, asking for a username and a password. Below the two fields were three buttons: Log-in, Register, and Exit.

Twilight clicked on the username field, but then stared at it for a couple of seconds.

“I haven't registered an account yet...” she finally said to nopony in particular.

“Registration usually takes around twenty to thirty hours, Twilight...” Spike said, staring at the LoL loading screen on his monitor. He slightly turned his head to see Twilight in his field of vision. “But since you wanted to just try out the game, why not use my account for the time being?”

“Is it okay?” Twilight asked, looking at him in concern. “Aren't account sharing bannable or something?” she mentally cringed, since that word never existed in any of her dictionaries. Ever since the rise of technology, new words started coming up, and Twilight was overwhelmed by the huge amounts of new words she needed to catch up upon.

Spike simply smiled and shook his head lightly. “Not really. There are exceptions to account sharing, like, if you know the owner of the account in real life and gave you permission, or if you're siblings, family, and...you get the idea.” He then fixed her a glare. “Just make sure not to lose any of my rare items and Pokémon! Especially the ones that Rarity traded with me!”

Twilight rolled her eyes with a small smile. “Fine fine. Just get over here and type your username and password already.”

Spike was about to get off from his chair when suddenly, his LoL match started. He quickly returned his attention to the starting game. “Eh, can't. Match just started. You type it.”

“Uh...”

“It's not like you're going to hack my account once you know my username and password. Or are you?”

“Of course not! Why in Equestria would I even want to do that?”

“And that's why I trust you!” Spike smiled as he made his avatar run towards the middle tower. “Username's ‘spikesparkle’. All lowercase letters and no spaces.”

Twilight used her magic to type it. She smiled at the thought of Spike actually using her last name as his own. It made her feel warm inside. After she typed her little brother's username, she then clicked on the password field.

“Password's ‘spikexrarity4ever’. All lowercase letters, no spaces, ‘for’ is the number four, and stop giggling!” he glared at his game as he began killing the enemy's minions while trying not to get attacked by the enemy champion.

Twilight giggled as she typed Spike's password. She then clicked the ‘Log-in’ button, and a loading ‘wiggling pokéball’ animation appeared with the word ‘connecting’ at the bottom.

“Seriously Twilight, stop giggling already!”

“S-sorry Spike...” Twilight said as she wiped a tear from her eye. She was about to say something when Spike groaned, but her attention went to her screen when a confirmation sound chirped and the screen faded into another still-image loading screen. “Huh, this is really a wonderful artwork,” she said in awe as she stared at the image of small grassy hills and tall icy mountains in the distance.

After a few more seconds, a peaceful yet lively music started playing as the screen began loading the environment in only two seconds. Twilight first noticed Spike's character...wearing a simple white t-shirt, a pair of black pants, a red and white cap, a brown backpack, white socks and black shoes. She then noticed that ‘Spike’ was inside a small luxurious-looking room with expensive-looking furniture. Above the character was a white text that read ‘SpikeTheDragon’ and above that text was ‘[TheElemendsOfHarmony]’. But what really bothered Twilight was that the character didn't even look like Spike at all! Except for the green hair though.

“Spike? What's this?”

“I'm guessing you're asking about my character's appearance, right?”

“Yeah, it's just so...funny looking...” she replied as she zoomed closer to check the character's details. “Shouldn't the skin color be green, like you? This is your character, after all.”

“The game doesn't offer green skin color though... But anyway, if you're wondering, those ‘trainers’ are called ‘humans’.”

“Humans?” she mumbled to herself. Where did she heard that word, anyway? She knew she heard about that, but where did she heard about it, or from whom? It irritated her. “Spike. Is there a list in this game of who created what?”

“Escape button, credits list,” Spike said automatically as he finally killed that annoying champion who gets healed every time it delivers an insane attack. “Hahah! Yeah! Eat shi—shrimps, you uh...never mind...”

Twilight arched an eyebrow at him.

Spike chuckled nervously. He was just glad that he caught his tongue. Since Twilight was here, he needed to keep the cursing at bay as best as possible, else, he'll be grounded again like last time.

Twilight shook her head and hit her keyboard's escape key. A log-out window appeared, with four buttons: Return to Game, Log-out, Credits, and Quit Game. She clicked the ‘credits’ button and a new larger window appeared.

“Let's see here... Hm...”

The window was divided into two columns. The first one, the smaller one on the left, was the table of contents. The right column, the larger one, was where the details were located. She was reading the texts on the table of contents when suddenly, a message-like tone chirped when a small blinking window appeared right in front of the text she was reading.

The small blinking window held the name ‘TheFabulousRarity’ on the left, and on the right were two buttons: an arrow-down button and an ‘x’ button.

“What's this?” she asked.

“Somepony probably ‘whispered’ to me,” Spike explained.

“Uh... Whisper?”

“It's like a private chat thing between players,” he explained as he tried to get away from three champions trying to kill him. “You know, like those chat boxes on PonyHoof. Anyway, usually in the game, the three chat boxes are full of spam...”

Twilight looked at the bottom screen, and there, the ‘Chat 1’ box is full of flowing texts about trades, sales, links to gold-selling sites, and she was sure she saw an ‘Apple Family's Cider’ ad somewhere there.

Spike continued, “...so the game created the ‘whisper feature’ to make conversation between two players easier.”

“Huh, that's actually pretty neat,” she said, impressed. She considered telling him that it was Rarity, but decided against it.

“It's probably Snips or Snails again, asking for help traveling some party dungeon or something. But if you're curious, which I'm certain that you are, then just click that arrow button right next to the close button.”

Twilight then clicked the arrow button, and the small window stopped blinking and expanded downward into a small chat box. There were three messages in the chat window.

“Reminder: Do NOT talk/give/share/type your username/password to anyone.”

“TheFabul...: Spikey Wikey!”

“TheFabul...: How are you today?”

Twilight casually began typing a reply.

“SpikeThe...: Hey there Rarity! This is Twilight, by the way.”

After a few seconds of nothing, Twilight began to hum along with the background music as she clicked on the Credits window again, putting the small whisper box behind it. She finally found the ‘Trainer Designs’ under the ‘Graphics And Artwork’. She clicked on it, and the flashing whisper box appeared in front of her monitor screen again, with a new message.

‘I guess this whisper chat box thing will go up front when there's a new reply. Pretty impressive.’

“TheFabul...: Twilight darling, how are you?”

“TheFabul...: I haven't seen you since last week.”

“TheFabul...: How was your week, by the way?”

“TheFabul...: I hope it wasn't stressful, darling.”

“TheFabul...: You should come by my boutique for some tea, dear.”

“TheFabul...: I would love to chat with you over some tea and crackers.”

“TheFabul...: Even though we have the technology now to talk in long distances...”

“TheFabul...: ...it's still always best to be able to talk to friends personally.”

“TheFabul...: Don't you agree, Twilight?”

Twilight blinked. “Wow... She types fast...” she whispered to herself as Rarity continued her onslaught of chat messages. Twilight read them all with a smile on her face.

“TheFabul...: ...and then Rainbow just wouldn't understand...”

“TheFabul...: ...how important advertising is, my dear.”

“TheFabul...: And I also hate the fact that this whisper box has a...”

“TheFabul...: ...character limit that I'm forced to cut my sentences...”

“TheFabul...: ...with these triple dots so those I talk to will know that...”

“TheFabul...: ...I am still not done talking.”

Twilight smiled as she mentally counted one...two...and...

“TheFabul...: Oh... Oh my. I do apologize Twilight.”

There was another pause. Twilight giggled when she imagined Rarity was chuckling nervously.

“TheFabul...: I guess I got carried away. Um...please respond?”

Twilight chuckled.

“SpikeThe...: It's okay Rarity. I'm still here. :)”

She heard about those ASCII ‘emoticons’ lately, and she heard that it's one way to know your mood to the one you're talking to online. At least, on informal conversations like between friends and family. She never tried doing that while she was chatting with other leaders or important ponies/beings in other nations though. Celestia forbids her of doing so. She remembered that she asked her mentor why, but Celestia just looked away with a small hint of a blush, and said that Twilight should just trust her.

“TheFabul...: Oh, good. I was scared there for a moment.”

“TheFabul...: So, I assume that you're just trying out the game?”

“SpikeThe...: Yeah. Something like that.”

“SpikeThe...: Rainbow forced me to try it, and I promised her that I'd giv”

“SpikeThe...: Huh, so there really is a character limit.”

“SpikeThe...: Anyway, I promised her that I'd try this game out.”

“TheFabul...: See? I told you those are annoying.”

“TheFabul...: I meant the character limit, darling.”

“TheFabul...: Anyway, I'll let you go now so you can enjoy the game.”

“TheFabul...: But you will visit me here in the boutique, right?”

“SpikeThe...: Of course! I'll be there this afternoon, Rarity.”

“TheFabul...: Wonderful! Thank you Twilight!”

“TheFabul...: I'll be expecting you.”

“TheFabul...: :)”

“TheFabulousRarity has logged off.”

“Exiting the game... Please wait...”

Rarity stared at her monitor screen, waiting for the game to close. When it did, her screen finally displayed her desktop, where a bright white Rarity close-up photo smiled at her.

“Oh, Rarity darling,” she said to herself, smiling, “such a lovely desktop background you have here.”

She stood up and walked beside her fabulous chair, and smiled. “Why, thank you darling. It's always nice to hear such lovely compliments.”

After that, she then turned around, and her smiling face sunk into a frown as she scanned her messy workplace. Small pieces of clothing of many colors were everywhere, strings and yarns, and paper sketches all over the floor. A few fallen mannequins, pencils, a measuring tape, different sizes and color of gems were lying around, and she swore that there wasn't a string of cobweb there before...

Rarity sighed in defeat. “I suppose Spikey Wikey's busy, now that Twilight's back.” She then brightened up with a smile as her horn glowed, and then a small feather duster hovered beside her. “Oh well. I've been sitting here for hours anyway. I could use the exercise.”

Finally free, Twilight closed the whisper box and then read the details of who designed the trainers. And behold, written in bold and big capital neon green letters was none other than...

“Lyra Heartstrings,” Twilight sighed in amusement. “Of course she'd be the one behind this. I mean, who else would be?” she asked herself as she read a small history of how the ‘human trainers’ were created.

To summarize it all, and two save you from a one-hour read, it only detailed that Lyra got the inspiration and ideas from...her imagination.

Spike was already sitting beside Twilight on the bed when she finally finished reading.

“I can't believe you read all of that,” Spike commented, shaking his head.

Twilight just smiled and closed the credits window. “I admit that it took longer than I hoped, but it was a pretty good read.” She took a breath and sighed. “I can't believe that I actually didn't bother talking to her before. She sure seems like a very imaginative pony.”

“No kidding,” Spike chuckled. “Now, get out of the hotel room and do some training already!”

“Right right...” Twilight replied, clicking at the closed white-painted wooden door.

When the character reached the door, the screen faded black, and then the character now stood in the middle of the hotel's main lobby. A window popped up, displaying a bowing human in black formal clothing on the left, and a message on the right that read “Thank you. If you ever need to stay for the night, please don't hesitate to stop by. Good luck with your adventure, trainer [SpikeTheDragon]!”

“Well, that wasn't very realistic,” Twilight mumbled as she clicked the ‘confirm’ button, the only button on the window.

Spike just chuckled. “You complain too much,” he said as Twilight clicked on the double glass doors of the lobby, actually walking through several characters in the process.

Twilight blinked as the game displayed a loading screen. “Huh? Are all characters ghosts that we can walk through them?”

Spike just rolled his eyes, deciding to ignore her question. “Let me check my team, Twilight,” he said as the game loaded a city-like environment.

“Wow, I wished Manehattan was as clean as...” she read the name of the city that appeared on the upper-left hand of the screen. “...uh...Saffron City? Are the places here named after colors?”

Spike blinked. “Saffron's a color?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Never mind then. So...you're saying about checking the team?”

“Just press the space bar.”

“Okie dokie,” Twilight pressed the space bar with a smile.

“Hey. Pinkie Pie already copyrighted that line,” he joked.

“Well, mine doesn't have a ‘lokie’,” she stuck her tongue out at him before returning to the screen.

A new window appeared, also divided into two main columns. At the very top of the window were two buttons: a highlighted ‘Pokémon Party’ and a grayed-out ‘Trainer's Inventory’. The left one displayed a 3d moving image of a large yellowish dragon with wings that were too small to lift itself. On the very top of the left column was the dragon's name, and below the name was its type, and at the very bottom of the column were it's stats. On the right column were divided into six rows, where each one had small icons, word abbreviations and numbers on them. The very top row was highlighted, and the small icon looked identical to the dragon on the left.

“Destructo?” Twilight read its name. “Dragon slash flying.”

“That's the Pokémon's name—er, nickname,” Spike explained. “I got that as a Dratini last month during the anniversary event. Sucks that I wasn't lucky enough to get a shiny, but hey! At least I got it for free!”

“What's so special about this dragon?” Twilight asked, turning the 3d dragon around with the mouse to study it's body.

“Dratini and other dragon-types are very rare to find in the game! Dragons are very powerful Pokémon that can take out almost any other Pokémon in the game. Also, trainers who actually manages to catch one can breed them and sell the egg to earn billions!” Spike explained, a little too excited.

Twilight just giggled at how happy and proud Spike sounded. “So, I bet you're already rich in this game.”

Spike's cheerful features drooped. “Not really. Special event Pokémon giveaways can't breed. Still,” he brightened once again, “I'm happy to actually have myself a Dragonite!”

Twilight wanted to point out that probably there are more players who also got one, if it was a giveaway, but decided not to destroy Spike's good mood.

“Check out that next one,” Spike pointed at the row below Dragonite's. Twilight clicked the row, and the Dragonite on the left column disappeared, along with its details, and was replaced by a two-legged wolf thing. “That one's a Lucario. Pretty cool Pokémon, huh? Snips and Snails and I really had a hard time finding one.” Spike smiled as he remembered how the trio spent countless hours trying to find one. “I ended up catching it, cause Snips and Snails forgot to buy pokéballs. I just bred the little dude and gave the eggs to Snips and Snails.”

Twilight smiled. She's impressed. Even with this game, Spike and many other players could actually form a bond of friendship, and can even strengthen their bonds by helping each other. But... “Countless hours?”

Spike blinked. Uh oh. “Um...”

Twilight fixed him a glare. “Spiiiike...”

“It was just that time, I swear Twilight!” Spike pleaded, bringing his claws together.

Twilight just rolled her eyes. “You know how expensive charging the power stones are these days, right?”

Spike wanted to point out that Twilight could use her magic to charge it up, but decided against it.

Twilight sighed and shook her head lightly. “We'll talk about that later.”

The two siblings' attentions were brought back to the game when another whisper window appeared. This time, it was from ‘SnailsLegends’.

“I am guessing that's Snails?” Twilight asked as she expanded the whisper window.

“Yeah,” Spike nodded.

“Reminder: Do NOT talk/give/share/type your username/password to anyone.”

“SnailsLe...: Wazzup Spike?”

“SnailsLe...: Wanna go to Cerulean Cave again?”

“SnailsLe...: Snips actually managed to open it.”

Twilight looked at Spike, who simply shrugged.

“Nah, we always fail that dungeon,” Spike said, leaning forward and began typing.

“SpikeThe...: Not today Snails.”

“SpikeThe...: I'm teaching Twilight how to play this game.”

“What does he meant by ‘open it’?” Twilight asked.

“The game has a limit of how many same party dungeons it can open at a time. Cerulean Cave is one of the toughest party dungeon there is, and I don't think that anypony has ever finished it. A few managed to reach the last floor, but there was a very powerful Pokémon there that can defeat anypony!”

Twilight didn't understand any of it, but decided not to ask for details. If she gets hooked, then she'll ask about it in the future. Right now though, she needs to focus on the basics of the game, and see if she can ‘get hooked’.

“SnailsLe...: Ms Spakrle is back?”

“SnailsLe...: Sweet!”

Twilight actually cringed at the misspelled word, her name of all words. Spike took notice, and chuckled.

“Yeah, he and Snips does that all the time,” he shrugged. “What can I say? They're still in elementary school.”

Twilight nodded. “Good point.”

“SnailsLe...: Well, me and Snips are gonna go ask somepony else.”

“SnailsLe...: Later Spike! And enjoy the gaem Miss Sparkle!”

At least it wasn't her name that was misspelled this time.

“SpikeThe...: Yeah, good luck!”

“SpikeThe...: You guys will DEFINITELY need it!”

“SnailsLe...: Thanks Spike!”

“SnailsLe...: Well be sure to capture Mewtwo!”

“SnailsLegends has changed his status to [Busy].”

Twilight decided to ignore the missed apostrophe. “What does ‘busy’ in the game mean?”

“The usual meaning of it,” Spike casually said as he closed the whisper and team windows. He then changed the angle of the camera view, and started clicking on the pathway ahead. “It usually means that players are doing something, and prefer not to be disturbed, or whispered.”

“Where are we going?” Twilight asked, trying her best to ignore that Spike's character was running through other standing characters on the clean concrete road.

“We're gonna let you battle a wild Pokémon,” Spike simply said as his character reached a large building. He clicked on the very large concrete doors, and the screen displayed a still-image loading screen.

“Wow,” Twilight said, “what pony is that?”

The loading screen was a fiery Rapidash, galloping in a very dark forest.

“That's called a Rapidash. Kinda strange that they look like the unicorns from Saddle Arabia though...”

Twilight blinked, and nodded. “Huh, you're right.”

“Unicorns of Saddle Arabia who have manes and tails of an angry Twilight,” he chuckled, earning a glare from his sister. “Eheheheh... Anyway... I'll let you take over now.” Spike scooted a bit so Twilight could sit directly in front of her computer.

She grabbed the mouse with her magic, and stared blankly at the natural scenery. From where Spike's character stood, a tall building that they ‘went through’ earlier stood behind him. Tall trees that she has never seen before stood as barriers on the east and west. There were small ledges up ahead, and tall grasses which were even taller than all other players walking around the area.

“Where did the city go?”

“That large building is called the city gate. It separates the city from the routes. Don't ask. Anyway, we're now in a place of what we call a route.”

“It said that we're in Route Six?”

“Eeyup. See those tall grasses over the ledges?” Spike asked, pointing at the tall grasses in the distance. “Usually, Pokémon can be found in tall grasses.”

“Like your Destructo?” she grinned, earning a soft glare from Spike. “Sorry. I was just teasing. Please continue.”

Spike rolled his eyes with an annoyed smile. “Anyway, yeah, like my Dragonite,” he explained as Twilight clicked the mouse over the tall grasses, and then the character started running towards the designated spot. “By the way, there are two modes of battle in this game.”

“Two modes?” Twilight asked as Spike's character jumped over the ledge, and stopped in the tall grasses.

Spike nodded. “Yeah. You can change it to whatever you want through the options. Anyway, the two modes of battle are ‘standard turn-based mode’ and ‘real-time free-move mode’. When you log into the game, the battle is set to the standard battle by default. Many players considered this a bug, while others are having a petition of saving their chosen modes and not reset back to standard when they log-out or get disconnected.” He looked at Twilight, who only blinked in response. “Anyway, just walk around the grass until you meet up with a wild Pokémon.”

“Okay. Shall I keep clicking or can I use the keyboard for moving?”

“You can use the keyboard though. Arrow keys or the WASD keys.” He shrugged. “Whichever you prefer.”

Twilight nodded and settled with the arrow keys, since those felt like the proper keys to use, for her at least.

As the character walked around, sounds of footsteps on grass and rustling noises could be heard against the adventurous background music theme. After a few seconds, the character stopped moving just as soon as a large pokéball appeared on the screen. The route's music changed into something more upbeat as the pokéball opened and appeared like it ‘devoured’ the screen into black. The black screen was suddenly splashed by long leaves and then a grassy field faded into the screen, revealing a creature on the upper-left corner, and Spike's character on the lower-right, his back facing the real-life players.

As the creature roared, sparkling stars erupted around it, making Spike jump from his seat and leaned closer to the screen.

“Oh my gosh, Twilight!” he exclaimed, too excited that Twilight mistook it that she must have done something wrong.

“What!? What did I do!?” Twilight asked, feeling panic taking over.

“Twilight! Not only did you found a shiny in your first time, but you found a Suicune of all Pokémon!” Spike turned to her with the biggest smile he ever had.

“Is...that a good thing?” Twilight slowly asked.

“Good? No! This is great! Fantastic even!”

There was a sudden click sound, and Spike's character threw a pokéball, sending out his Dragonite, who roared as it stood on his spot in the screen. Because the Dragonite was too tall for the screen to fit, the game auto-zoomed out a bit, enough to fit the Dragonite on the screen.

Spike took in a breath and tried to calm himself. “Okay Twilight, this is your first time in a standard Pokémon battle. Whoever is the fastest will act first,” he explained as he motioned for Twilight to return to the game. “There are four menus on the screen to choose,” he continued, pointing at the four buttons on the lower-right hand of the screen, just below Dragonite's health bar. “Here's how it works. Click the Battle button.”

Twilight nodded and hovered the mouse to the button. She clicked on it, and four new buttons appeared.

“These are now Dragonite's known moves. The point here is to lower your opponent's H.P. to yellow or red if you want to catch it. You can bring your foe's H.P. to zero if you just want to knock it out for experience, but...” he clapped his claws together again, “please catch it, Twilight!”

Twilight smiled awkwardly and nervously. “I-I'll try...?” She gulped and selected ‘Earthquake’. ‘I have no idea what I'm doing’...

The Dragonite moved first. It flapped its wings several times, sending it airborne, which Twilight found impossibly funny. It then growled a bit as it mightily slammed its two massive feet back on the ground, shaking the whole screen. Finally, Suicune was struck, and its health bar went down to yellow, almost reaching the red zone. Then, a message displayed on the bottom.

“Not very effective?” Twilight read, having no clue what that actually meant.

Spike just nodded. “Are you sure you're new at this game, Twilight? 'Cause from the way I see it, you're looking like a complete natural at this.” He smiled as Suicune predictably used an Ice Beam attack, immediately lowering Dragonite's health bar to zero.

“What!?” Twilight gasped. “That's no fair!” she complained as a ‘super effective’ message screen appeared. “How could a dragon be ‘knocked out’ just like that with one simple ice beam?” she shook her head as the Dragonite cried lowly and was sent back to its pokéball. “That just doesn't make sense!”

“Twilight,” Spike called in amusement as a new window appeared for the player to select another Pokémon to send out, or to click a button to run away. “It's just a game.”

“But still! The creators could at least apply some real life logic into this game!”

Spike just rolled his eyes. “Just pick a new Pokémon to send out, Twilight.”

Twilight huffed and clicked on the Lucario, since she doesn't really know what the other four were.

A pokéball was thrown and the Lucario growled as it jumped in the air before landing on its spot in the battlefield.

“Nice choice,” Spike commented. Twilight clicked the ‘battle’ button again, but Spike held a claw up. “Wait wait! I told you to capture it!”

“B-but I wan't to avenge your dragon-thingy's death!” She blinked. That sounded wrong.

Spike rolled his eyes with a low groan. “Twilight. Just a game. Remember?” He looked lamely at Twilight's embarrassed smile. “Whatever. Don't kill it please? I really want that! Just click the ‘cancel’ button there.”

Twilight nodded and clicked on the said button, making the four menu button to return to the main ones.

“Now, here's how one catch a Pokémon,” he said as he pointed at the ‘items’ button. “Click that button.”

Twilight did was Spike asked. All four buttons on the lower-right went gray as another larger window appeared in the middle of the screen. The screen had four large buttons: Recovery, Pokéball, Berries and Status Items. Suddenly, the camera angle on the background changed into a slightly spinning birds-eye view.

Spike pointed at the Pokéball button. Twilight clicked it and the window changed, displaying different kinds of pokéballs.

“These are the catching items used to capture wild Pokémon,” Spike explained as Twilight hovered the mouse to the pokéballs, reading their description that were displayed on the bottom part of the window. “Ordinary wild Pokémon can be captured by almost any kinds of pokéballs, but...”

Twilight cut in, “but this Su-eee-kyun is not an ordinary wild Pokémon, if I were to judge your reaction from earlier.”

Spike nodded. “Yeah. It's in its shiny form, which is ultra rare, and is one of the legendary Pokémon in the game!” He then turned back to the screen, staring at the Suicune from a zoomed-out idle view. “Legendaries are one-of-a-kind Pokémon in the game. Only one exist, meaning that only one trainer can capture and train them. If we're lucky, I'll be the only trainer to have a Suicune in the entire world!”

Twilight rolled her eyes in amusement.

“...for only thirty days...” Spike sighed. “I read in the forums that captured legendaries only have thirty days to stay with whoever caught them before the game automatically releases them back into the wild.” He shrugged. “The developers said that it's for fairness, and because they're ‘legendary’.”

“I think I get it,” Twilight nodded with a smile. “It's only fair for them to regain their availability to be captured again, so other players can get the fair chance to catch and train them.”

Spike nodded, and frowned. “Drat. I ran out of Master Balls...” He tsk'ed. “The best ball I have left is a Great Ball... Just...great...” he groaned.

“So, any of these can catch that Poke-a-mon, right?” Twilight asked, moving the mouse up and down repeatedly.

Spike nodded. “Yeah, but I think we should try and use the Grea—”

Twilight clicked the Net Ball.

Spike blinked, wondering what just happened.

The pokéball selection window disappeared, and the the camera angle returned to normal. It zoomed-out, until Spike's character appeared, holding the Net Ball. He threw it at the Suicune, and upon contact, the camera zoomed to the Suicune that became white and disappeared. Twilight smiled as the Net Ball closed and landed on the spot where Suicune was once was.

Spike held his breath as the Net Ball wiggled. One...

Twilight clapped her hooves happily, while Spike's eyes shrunk to dots. The Net Ball wiggled again... Two...

Twilight arched an eyebrow as she stared at Spike who was nervously biting his fingernails. The Net Ball wiggled again... Three...

Everything went dead quiet for Spike. He actually felt his heart stopped beating as sweat flowed like waterfall. The Net Ball didn't move.

There was a clicking sound as the Net Ball blinked black for a moment, stars sparked from it, and then the upbeat battle music instantly changed into a more congratulatory-type themed music. A message window appeared at the bottom of the screen, congratulating the player that they have successfully caught the wild Pokémon. And there was also a button that says ‘block whispers’ at the far bottom-right of the message window.

As Spike finally realized that everything wasn't a dream, a very loud pop-up noise erupted as another congratulatory pop-up window appeared on the upper-right of the screen. On that window was Suicune's full-body image on the left, and on the right was a message that read “[SpikeTheDragon] successfully caught a [Shiny] Suicune!” Below the message were two buttons: ‘Send A Whisper’ and ‘Close’.

As the screen faded into black and returned to the grassy field, the speakers let out a series of whisper pop-up noises as the screen was flooded by so many blinking whisper pop-ups. The noise was replaced by a loud screeching noise, and suddenly, the screen became blue with white texts, and suddenly went to black as Twilight and Spike heard a ‘beep!’.

The two siblings blinked at the booting screen.

“Oh...” Spike suddenly said. “So that's what the ‘block whisper’ option was for...”

Author's Note

I really hate the fact that I constantly type ‘of’ instead of ‘or’ when I'm in a roll... xD
Anyway, I decided that updates will be weekly. Same day, around this hour next week. :3

Thanks for reading the story! Please do leave a comment, a thumbs up or down!
It doesn't matter. I need feedbackfjdsabngkelwjbnklsjglksadgblfhgbalkjdkl!!! :D

Friends Of The Game

After filling up the online registration form, Twilight clicked the ‘Send’ button. A little wiggling pokéball animation appeared on the center of the screen, with the texts ‘Sending Form... Please Wait...’ below it. Ten seconds later, the texts faded out as the pokeball popped open, sending out a small note from inside that read: “Thank you for registering. Your verification code will be sent to your email in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Spike? I thought you said it'll be twenty to thirty hours...” Twilight said as she clicked the ‘Okay’ button.

“They must have changed it then,” came Spike's voice from the kitchen, who was in the middle of cooking their lunch. “The game has been live for a year and a month now. Though if you include the open-beta and close-beta phrases, then the game has been a year and six months now.”

Twilight nodded as she closed her browser window and clicked the ‘shut down’ button. “That makes sense,” she replied as she stood up from her bed and stretched her legs and wings. As her monitor screen became black, she flicked her AVR switch off with her magic and she then trotted down the stairs. A delicious scent quickly invaded her nostrils, watering her mouth. “Mm... Spike, that smells delicious!”

Spike just chuckled as he placed the hayfries on a large plate. Shutting off their gas stove (since Twilight has calculated that gas stoves are cheaper than gem-powered stoves), Spike took the large plate-full of hayfries and jumped off the chair, and placed the meal in the center of the dining table.

Twilight trotted inside the dining area, and used her magic to levitate two sets of eating utensils on the table. “You have no idea how much I missed your cooking, Spike!”

Spike blushed a bit as he pulled the alicorn's chair so she could sit. “Aw shucks, Twilight.” When Twilight was comfortable, he ran to his chair and sat down. “It's the least I could do!”

Twilight giggled lightly, and the two ate their lunch with small trades of questions and answers with topics that circled around how their week has gone.

Twilight hummed a tune to herself as she trotted on the earthy path. Ponies waved a hoof at her, and she waved at each one of them back. She could not believe how big Ponyville grew ever since technology erupted in the land. But she was still thankful that they took extra care of limiting pollution and not removing the ‘Ponyville-taste’ that everypony grew up with.

Up ahead, a few houses in front of her, stood the town's most famous bakery: Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie trotted out of the bakery's doors, ringing a bell on top. A tray of baked goods and cold drinks lay perfectly balanced on her back and cheerfully placed them on a table. Her two customers thanked her, and Pinkie thanked them back as she took the tray back on her back.

“Oh, heya Twilight!” she cheerfully said as soon as she saw her friend trotting towards them. “Haven't seen you for a week!”

“Good afternoon, your majesty,” the two customers bowed their heads.

Twilight waved a hoof. “I thought I told you ponies not to address me like that...” she said, feeling a bit embarrassed.

The customers just chuckled and excused themselves to eat. Twilight then faced her pink pony friend. She was about to greet her, but the pink mare was too quick with one of her signature Pinkie-crushing-hugs.

“Ooohhh Twilight! I missed you so so so much!” Pinkie said joyfully, tightening her hug.

“I...can tell...” Twilight gritted her teeth as she swore she heard a bone cracked or two. “Pinkie...” she hissed through a pained smile, “...we talked about this...”

Pinkie then lets her go, dropping her to the ground. The two customers winced. “I know, but you can't imagine how everypony missed you Twilight! Especially me!”

“Oh, believe me,” Twilight got back up, rubbing her chest with a hoof, “I think I can imagine...” She then faced her pink friend with a smile, and Pinkie smiled as well.

Pinkie leaned closer, and Twilight feared that she'd get another crushing hug again. She was a bit surprised when Pinkie gave her a casual friendly hug this time. She returned it.

“I'd love to stay and chat, Twilight,” Pinkie broke the hug with a slightly sad smile, “but I still got lots of baking to do!”

Twilight was about to respond when a cyan pegasus landed beside them.

“There you are, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said, “and oh, hey there, Pinkie!”

“Hiya Dashie!” Pinkie greeted back. “Came here for the usual batch?”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah. Thanks Pinks!”

“No problem! Be back in a jiffy~” and Pinkie sprang inside the bakery.

Rainbow then sat on one of the chairs outside the bakery, and gestured with a hoof for Twilight to join her.

“So,” Twilight said, sitting on the other chair, “how was work?”

“Meh, boring and lame. The usual,” Rainbow waved a hoof. “Schedule is clear and cloudless, so it wasn't really overwhelming. Anyway,” Rainbow frowned, “I thought we're gonna have a play-date today, Twilight. Don't tell me you suddenly forgot all about it.”

Twilight just shook her head lightly with a smile. “I haven't forgotten about it, Rainbow.”

“So, why are you here? Shouldn't you be... I dunno...at the library? I only have an hour to spare before I head to the academy.”

“Verification,” Twilight simply replied.

Rainbow blinked, and frowned further. “Oh yeah... Forgot about those lame jumbled letters and numbers...” She groaned, but flashed a small smile soon after with a nod. “Well, tomorrow then?”

Twilight nodded. “Of course.”

Rainbow grinned. “So, I take it that you're hooked by the game?”

Twilight just shook her head lightly. “I wouldn't say that I was ‘hooked’, Rainbow. Though I am interested more about the game after Spike let me try out how the game works.”

“Spike made you play his char, huh? He probably made you oath not to touch his ‘Rarity-tagged’ items,” Rainbow chuckled.

Twilight just grinned. “Hey now. You're being mean to Spike.”

“Yeah? Well, tell your smile that too.”

“Ha-choo!” Spike sneezed suddenly.

“You have been slain...” said the female voice from his LoL game, making Spike gasp and pound his claws on his keyboard.

“W-what!? No fair!!!” he shouted as he read a few lines on the chat of why he just stood there to die.

Gritting his teeth, he wiped his mouth with one claw as he grabbed a tissue paper with another claw and wiped his spit-showered monitor screen.

“Okay,” he glared as he wiped the screen, “after this game, I'm dusting the whole place clean!”

The two mares chuckled lightly as Pinkie Pie trotted out of the bakery again, carrying a small box of muffins.

“Freshly-baked muffins on the go!” Pinkie chirped as she placed the box on the table in front of Rainbow. “Here ya go, Dashie!”

“Thanks Pinks!” Rainbow said, pulling the box closer to her as Pinkie Pie sat on the chair. “Oh hey Pinks. I introduced Twilight to Pokémon. And—”

“What!?” Pinkie slammed both her hooves on the table, starling both her friends and a few customers nearby. She didn't seem to notice them being startled however. Pinkie then flashed the alicorn a pretty huge grin on her face. “Really?”

“Eh...” Twilight gulped, and smiled nervously and awkwardly. “...y-yes...?”

Pinkie suddenly grabbed the alicorn's shoulders as she gleefully hopped in place. “Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh Twilight! You should really start with a Mudkip in the Hoenn region! Everypony knows that everypony loves Mudkip.”

Twilight just blinked.

Rainbow blew a raspberry. “Please Pinkie,” she waved a hoof in the air as Pinkie let Twilight go and sat back down on her chair. “Hoenn's a pretty boring map. I'd say she should start in Unova. Now that is an awesome region to start with! Plus, the starters are way too awesome than the other starters.”

Pinkie frowned. “That is sooo not true, Dashie,” she argued, “Hoenn's a pretty fun region! There's a cable-car ride, and a secret base for your secrets! And oh, don't forget the master of tricks is in Hoenn!”

Rainbow waved a hoof. “Okay, the Trick Master's a fun place, I admit. But Hoenn's pretty boring. Unova has changing seasons like no other region! Except for Sinnoh, if I remember correctly. And Unova has an amusement park! And an airport! And...uh...and oh! The World Tournaments located there as well! Ha!”

Twilight just sat there, feeling really left out as her two friends kept on debating on what's a better ‘region’, whatever that was. It was weird that a game has so many things for other ponies to discuss about. It could open many possibilities of seeing how open-minded ponies can be, and how they can listen to another pony's side of things.

“...but you've got to admit that Chargestone Cave's an awesome party dungeon! I'd bet twenty bits that Twilight's gonna stay there just to study how stones can float without magic!” Rainbow argued.

“Yeah? Well, I accept that bet that Twilight's gonna be even more interested in a whole island appearing and disappearing in thin air!” Pinkie countered.

...or the game could divide ponies basing on their different points of views over such a complex game...

“Mm-hmm, well, I think that they're just acting like a bunch of little fillies, Twilight,” Rarity said, levitating a small white cup to take a sip of tea. “Though I agree that the game is quite big, it's not really something ponies should be arguing about.”

Twilight nodded after taking a sip from her own cup of tea. “I guess you're right, Rarity. But it did made me even want to play the game, just to see how big of a deal it is.”

Rarity smiled. “That is wonderful to hear, Twilight. If I were to make a suggestion, you should start in the Kanto region. That's where Spike and I started our ‘trainer's journey’, after all.” She took a sip from her cup of tea. “But anyway Twilight, even though Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were arguing about it, believe me when I say this dear, but they don't mean to anger one another about it.” She paused a bit as she levitated the teapot to pour herself and Twilight some tea. “Besides, they're best friends, and it needs more than just a game argument to ruin their friendship.”

“I know,” Twilight smiled. “They did say how silly they would have sounded, and said their goodbyes before Rainbow took off to the academy.”

Rarity smiled. “That's good to hear. Although not surprising,” she chuckled.

Twilight blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well Twilight. Those two argue about the game all the time. So to see them arguing about it and still being friends isn't really new. I've seen them a few times when I head out of the boutique.” She paused to take a sip. “I even tried to talk to them the first time I saw them arguing. Anyway, let us move on to another topic, shall we?”

Twilight simply smiled and nodded.

“So, Twilight, how was your week?”

Twilight thought about it for a while as she turned her head to the window, watching the ponies trotting to and fro, and some were talking to each other.

Finally, she replied, “my week has been busy as always.” She then turned to her friend, and took a sip of her tea before she continued. “Princess Celestia has yet to assign me to rule an empire or country though. But I doubt I'll be ruling anything any time soon. So I made myself busy by attending the many conventions held in different places of Equestria.” She paused to take another sip. “And oh, let me know when I'm rambling, Rarity.”

Rarity just smiled and shook her head lightly. “Oh, it's no problem, Twilight! That's the whole reason why I invited you over! You've been attending these conventions that you barely even come home! We sure have missed you Twilight.”

Twilight frowned momentarily before forcing a smile and a nod. “I do plan on changing that, Rarity. You could say that I went to all of conventions just so I could forget, even for a little while, that I'm a princess. I mean,” she frowned and slightly extended one of her wings, “just because I suddenly grew a pair of wings overnight, doesn't mean I'm already a princess.”

Rarity just chuckled. “Oh Twilight. That same complaint again?”

Twilight just rolled her eyes in annoyance-amusement. “Anyway, I really had a great time seeing the many great inventions and intelligent minds of different ponies in the convention. There are so many inventions that I don't even know where to start!”

“Well, may I suggest you start with garments and dress-related inventions?”

Twilight blinked, and smiled nervously. “W-well, the only ones like that were the ones presented by the Flim and Flam brothers.”

Rarity frowned. “Never mind, then.” She sipped some tea.

Twilight chuckled. “I figured as much.” She took a sip. “So, how about you Rarity? How was your week?”

Rarity blinked and brought a hoof to her chin. “Well, it wasn't really as exciting as your week, Twilight. That I'm sure. I was just busy advertising my dresses in the game.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. She never actually believed what Rainbow Dash has said about how Rarity played the game. But hearing it from Rarity herself, she now owes Rainbow Dash an apology for doubting her.

“When the game was introduced, I took the opportunity to advertise my garments. Since the game is international, I have received quite a number of new orders, either from Equestria or overseas.”

“W-wouldn't that be...” Twilight interrupted, but wasn't able to complete her question without sounding rather harsh. She bit her lip as she thought of the other words for her...harsh word.

Rarity blinked at her alicorn friend, and studied her troubled face. But as a mare of word and gossip, she was quick to connect the dots, even those still not existing. Hence where gossips came from. She waved a hoof to help her friend stop her rather ‘troubling’ train of thought.

“Oh, don't worry, Twilight. I am aware of the possible frauds and other problems I might face through such attempts,” she said as she magically poured tea onto her cup. “I'm not really a pony that would fall to frauds pretty easily.”

Twilight smiled, feeling reassured from hearing those from her dear friend.

Rarity took a sip before continuing. “We have the internet now. Sure, it's full of possibilities of fraud, but if we trot on the proper path, there won't be any sort of problems.”

Twilight nodded. “That's...really nice to hear, Rarity.” She then looked around her boutique, noticing how cramp the place was now. There were more garments, more mannequins, and other stuff. “But, these orders you're receiving,” she looked back at her friend, “aren't they rather...overwhelming?”

Rarity blinked, and smiled. “Ah, yes. Thank you Twilight, but don't worry. I started hiring a few ponies to help me around the boutique. Since they'll be working for me, I'm following the standard Equestrian employment law.” She smiled teasingly as she said, “I wouldn't be hiring ponies without following the rules, of course. Not to mention that one of my best friends are ‘best friends’ with the law now,” Rarity chuckled at her joke.

Twilight just rolled her eyes. “So, I take it that today and tomorrow are their day-offs?”

“Oh, but of course,” Rarity nodded. “Today was a very busy week. I wouldn't think that I'd be able to get all of those twenty-seven dresses be done before Tuesday if I didn't have anyone helping me out.”

Twilight decided to raise her friends ego a bit. “Oh? When I first met you, you could make six outfits in less than an hour. I bet Twenty-seven wouldn't even be a challenge for you, Rarity.”

Rarity took pride from her praise. “Why thank you, Twilight. What you said is true, but,” her proud smile softened, “different clients have different tastes and designs in mind. And since I don't actually know them personally, making dresses would be quite a challenge.”

“Oh... Well, that makes sense,” Twilight nodded. “You don't know them, so you don't know their traits and personalities, unlike the girls and I.”

Rarity nodded. “That is exactly right, Twilight.” She smiled. “Still, it was really nice to hear your compliment.”

Twilight threw a hoof in the air. “Aw, come on Rarity. You know the girls and I love your work.” She noticed her friend's raised eyebrow. “Okay, maybe Rainbow Dash and Applejack won't, but I'm sure deep down they love it.”

Rarity smiled, and then giggled. “I was just teasing, Twilight. No need to work yourself up. Yes, I know the girls mean well, and they're all my great friends. But they have different tastes in different matters of life, and I respect that.”

Twilight just nodded, and sipped her tea.

Twilight and Rarity have talked about so many random things that they didn't even realized the time. Thankfully, they were alerted by the time when Rarity's pet cat reminded her that a certain white cat needed food. Rarity had a scheduled spa-date with Fluttershy, so Twilight then excused herself as Rarity began to prepare herself. They said their goodbyes after promising that they'd see each other tomorrow, probably online through the game.

Since she was already outside, Twilight decided to head to the marketplace to buy something for dinner later. Maybe something related to apples would suffice. She was sure that Spike would be so into his game that he won't be able to notice of the time, like how she and Rarity were into their chat earlier.

“Ha-choo!” Spike sneezed at the flower vase that he was wiping on his claws. “Geez, I just hope I won't get sick or something!” he whispered to himself as he wiped the vase with a rug.

Shaking his head lightly, he placed the vase back on Twilight's desk on the library's ground floor. Looking around, Spike felt proud of how clean the entire place was. His gaze then fell on an old sack leaning on the wall beside the front door of the library. Above that old sack was a clock that hung on the wall.

“Wow... Didn't think cleaning would take that much time!” he said to himself as he walked towards the sack. “Kinda weird that time flew by so fast in cleaning like it does when playing.” He shrugged as he opened the door before grabbing the sack.

He walked out just in time, too. A garbage-collecting wagon was a few houses away, and garbage collector ponies were already greeting the house owner goodbye before going to the next house.

Spike whistled, catching the collectors' attentions.

“Good afternoon, Spike!” greeted one of the ponies while the others began pulling the wagon. “Just leave it there and we'll collect it when we get there.”

“Hey, thanks!” Spike shouted back. He then dragged the sack of garbage and dust by the mailbox. “Now, time for a shower,” he whispered as he walked back inside the library.

As Twilight trotted on the earthy path towards the market, she saw her dear pegasus friend trotting on the same path, heading towards the boutique's direction. As they got closer, she could already see Fluttershy's gentle smile. Twilight smiled back, and prepared to greet her friend.

“Hey Twilight!” but Fluttershy was quicker.

“Hey Fluttershy!” Twilight greeted back as they hugged. After they broke their hug, Twilight asked, “so you're heading towards Rarity's place?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I promised to go and meet her for our afternoon spa.”

“Oh, well, in that case, let me walk you there,” Twilight offered.

“Um... A-are you sure, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked, lowering her gaze to the ground. “I mean, I wouldn't want to trouble you and all...”

Twilight just giggled lightly. “Come on, Fluttershy. I haven't seen you for a week! It's the least I could do!”

Fluttershy then smiled at her friend, and soon, the two of them began trotting towards Rarity's boutique...which wasn't really that far.

“So Fluttershy, how was your week?”

Fluttershy smiled brightly. “Oh, you know. The usual. Taking good care of our little animal friends. And oh!” she quickly faced her alicorn friend, “a few days ago, Miss Cheerilee brought her students over, and I was able to teach the little foals about the animals!”

Twilight smiled. “That's great, Fluttershy! I bet the school colts and fillies learned a lot from you!”

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh, they did! And when it was over, Miss Cheerilee gave them a pop quiz on the spot!”

Twilight looked at her friend with surprise. “Really?”

Fluttershy nodded again. “I didn't even notice that Miss Cheerilee was taking notes of the things I shared with her students!” She smiled, “but they did very well in answering her questions!” She took a deep breath, and sighed with a smile. “So, how was your week, Twilight?”

Twilight was about to answer when a sound of an opened door interrupted them. The two turned to the source, and saw Rarity casually trotting out of her boutique.

“Fluttershy darling! And hello again Twilight!” Rarity greeted them, her tone sounded a bit rushed as she closed her boutique's door. “Sorry Twilight, but I'll have to steal Fluttershy for now.”

Fluttershy just blinked while Twilight smiled with a nod.

“Of course! Don't mind me,” Twilight replied, “I wouldn't want to make you two be late on your spa date.”

“Why don't you come and join us, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked.

Rarity nodded. “That is a wonderful idea, darling! What do you say, Twilight?” she asked, blinking her eyes rapidly. “Pretty please?”

“Um...” Twilight fidgeted, “...well, I ah...”

“Excellent!” Rarity suddenly announced, startling her two friends. She trotted in between her two friends, heading towards the spa's direction. “Let us go then, shall we, girls?”

Fluttershy and Twilight stared at each other. The former smiled apologetically.

“Of course, if you're busy, then I'm sure Rarity will understand.”

Twilight just shook her head. “Nah, I don't have anything to do before dinner anyway.”

Fluttershy smiled, and the two trotted after their spa-excited friend.

The sun was already setting by the time the three mares' spa was done. Their spa session lasted for an hour or so, and the three mares enjoyed their time there in relaxation as Rarity shared with them her newly gathered gossips of the week.

After that, the three friends trotted out of the spa, and Twilight waved the two goodbye as they trotted back to Rarity's boutique. With that, Twilight turned and headed towards the marketplace.

The marketplace has grown, but still held the same ‘Ponyville market’ aura. Shoppers were walking to each and every stall, studying the vendors' many items for sale.

As she trotted through the busy pathway, many ponies waved a hoof and greeted her. Some even tried to sell her their items, and she ended up buying a few stalks of celery, a few tomatoes, and a half-tray of eggs. She placed them in a brown paper bag, levitated behind her. Finally, she reached her friend's stall.

Applejack was busy packing things up to notice her friend trotting behind her. The farmpony sighed in relief and wiped the sweat on her forehead with a hoof. She then turned around to pull another basket of apples when she finally took notice of her smiling friend's presence.

“Twilight!” Applejack cheerfully said, immediately wrapping the alicorn into a warm yet slightly sweaty hug. “Where the heck have you been, girl?” she asked as she broke their hug with a warm smile.

“It's great to see you too, Applejack!” She then studied the many empty baskets that Applejack as already stacked and placed inside her wagon. “And wow! I bet you had a pretty bit-citing day, huh?”

Applejack actually raised an eyebrow in amusement at how lame her friend's pun was. Still, she gave the alicorn a hard Apple Family pat on the back as she laughed. “Now that there was the lamest pun I've ever heard, sugarcube.”

Twilight actually winced at the painful pats, but collected them all with a painful pride. The convention sure was full of pun-loving speakers, pun not intended. “Uh... your welcome?”

“Phew...” Applejack wiped a tear from her eye. “Damn, that was a good one, Twi. Thanks,” and she chuckled as she shook her head lightly while returning to her task.

“Need help?” Twilight asked.

“Huh? Oh, uh...” she remembered not to be stubborn around her alicorn friend, so she swallowed some of that Apple Family pride and nodded with a slightly forced smile. “Sure sugarcube! If you don't mind, that is.”

Twilight, with magic, lifted a few barrels onto her wagon, leaving a few for Applejack to carry, since she was still aware of how stubborn her farmpony friend was. “Oh, I don't mind at all, Applejack!”

With everything set, Applejack strapped the wagon's harness on herself and started pulling the wagon towards Sweet Apple Acres. “Thanks for the help, sugarcube.”

“No problem,” Twilight said, trotting beside her. “You don't mind if I walk with you until we reach the library, right?”

“Of course not!” Applejack smiled brightly. “You've been gone for five days and escorting you back to the library's the least I could do, Twilight! So, how was those convention-thingies you've been so busy about?”

“Well, it was fun. There were so many inventions that ponies presented! I couldn't believe how creative those ponies were!” Twilight responded happily.

Applejack chuckled. “Well, it's nice to hear you had a good time. Say,” Applejack suddenly sounded excited, “was there anything for plowing the land or bucking trees or anything farm-related?”

Twilight blinked and thought about it as she stared at the cloudless orangey sky. “Hm... No. Not this week, at least. Although...there was hammer-like contraption for bucking trees called the ‘Buck 'til They Drop’.”

Applejack actually was eager to listen, and couldn't concentrate on keeping her eyes on the road.

Twilight however, frowned. “But during the testing though, the tree was split in half...”

Applejack's eye twitched as her whole body cringed. “Uh... Wow... I guess the tree did ‘drop’...”

Twilight smiled bitterly. “Well, the Flim and Flam brothers did earn their reputation for...hazardous inventions.”

Applejack's brow furrowed and turned her attention at the road. “Remind me to ask the inventors first before you go telling me about the new contraptions, Twi.”

Twilight nodded. “I'll keep that in mind.” The two allowed a few seconds of silence for the farmpony to defuse a bit. “So, how about you, Applejack?”

“Mm? What about me, sugarcube?”

“How was your week?”

Applejack simply shrugged. “Meh... Same old, same old. Buck some apple trees, sell 'em in the market. Sometimes, I go online in this Poke-a-mon game and advertise our family's products.”

“Oh?”

Applejack simply nodded. “Eeyup. I can't say that I'm into the game but, I do play the game every once in a while. Sometimes I'm helping out Rainbow Dash or Spike in some ‘party-dungeon’ or something.” She looked at her friend, and noticed the alicorn's look of interest. She smiled. “I take it you're playing the game as well?”

“What?” Twilight blinked. “Oh, yeah. Spike let me try it out earlier. I decided to make my own account. So now I'm waiting for my verification code.”

Applejack chuckled lightly. “So, I take it you'll be playing that game whole day tomorrow?” She chuckled some more. “Try not to get so swallowed up by the game, sugarcube. You might end up like Dash a few months back. She stayed home for four days straight just playing the game, without food or sleep. Rarity and I spent a lot of hours trying to convince Fluttershy to fly up there and talk some sense into the girl.”

Twilight just blinked. “W-wow... Really?”

“No reason for me to lie about something, now do I?” she smiled and patted her friend's shoulder. “Anyway, I'll try and be online tomorrow, sugarcube. Might be fun playing the game with you.”

Twilight smiled and nodded.

“Well, here we are!” Applejack announced, stopping a few meters in front of the library's wooden door. She studied the place for a while before chuckling. “I take it that Spike's also into some game world of his own, judging from the unlit library. Glad that you're around to snap some sense into the small guy.”

“When Spike starts a game, it's almost impossible to get him off of it,” Twilight chuckled.

“Ha-choo!” Spike sneezes just as he was about to open the door to exit the bathroom. “Okay, I'm going to make myself some orange juice...” He pulled the door open, white towels wrapped around his waist and on his forehead.

Applejack chuckled as well, and then said her goodbye before turning to the road towards Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight waved goodbye to her friend before opening the door to the library with her magic.

“Spike! I—” she announced cheerfully, and froze when a realization struck her. “—forgot to buy some apples...”

Spike poked his head from the stairs with an arched eyebrow. “Twilight, you came home just to tell me that?”

Author's Note

Yeah, this is rather a boring chapter. I apologize for that. My only excuse is that I did tagged this as a ‘Slice of Life’.
Anyway, I am just trying to open the characters though, so everyone can see how everypony are doing.
This chapter took a lot of editing. First, Rarity's scene was far too long and boring in the original, so I scrapped the useless parts. Also, Fluttershy wasn't suppose to be included in this chapter, but hey, that won't be fair, right? :3

The Spike sneezing parts were recently added after I watched that one episode of Rurouni Kenshin. Saito sneezed too many times when Kenshin and the gang mentioned him in their conversation. xD

The next chapter will be full of Pokémon. :3

Playing The Game

“Welcome to the world of Pokémon.”

Twilight smiled. She has already seen the introduction scene of the game, but she decided to watch it again. After all, it doesn't really hurt anypony to watch the same thing twice.

Chirping noises suddenly echoed, louder and louder, and soon, the scene changed, following many different flying Pokémon. The scene changed to a grassy field where different earth-bound Pokémon grazed and played. The scene changed once again, this time under the sea, where many Pokémon swam in different directions.

Twilight clicked on the username field, and typed in her user i.d., ‘twilightsparkle’.

She then clicked on the password field and typed ‘mane6trafrp&s’.

“What kind of a password was that?” Spike asked, who was seated on the bed next to Twilight, after he observed the keyboard that was surrounded by a faint purple glow of the alicorn's magic.

He and Twilight moved his computer right next to hers, so the two of them could play the game side by side.

“I'll let you figure that out,” Twilight replied and she then stuck her tongue out at him.

Spike rolled his eyes with a small smile. “Whatever...”

Twilight then clicked on the ‘Log-in’ button and the two watched a wiggling pokéball loading animation that appeared on the center of the screen, with the words ‘connecting’ below it.

A confirmation sound chirped and the screen faded into a still-image loading screen. The image showed a large yellow bird, with bolts of lightning danced around its spike-like wings, as it soared on top of a tall mountain in an island under a storm.

After a few seconds of staring at the loading screen, Twilight just then noticed the word ‘Loading...’ on the bottom of the screen, and — albeit smaller in font — a group of texts below it.

“Press the Print Screen button to take a screenshot.”

“Those are help texts,” Spike pointed out as he was sorting his Pokémon team on the right window and those in his storage on the left window. “They're random yet useful information for players while waiting for the loading screen to go away.”

Twilight nodded as the image faded into a new ‘environment’. She noticed that the screen somehow looked as if it was divided vertically. A smaller portion was on the left, and she noticed that nothing was displayed there, except for an ‘opal shadow’ at the bottom. The right portion was a semi-transparent black, with blurred and grayed-out texts that were impossible to read. The only thing there for her was a button that read ‘create character’ in the very middle of that portion.

Almost automatically, she clicked on that button, and a new window fell down, and bounced a few times when it ‘landed’ on the very bottom of the screen. The window was once again separated vertically in two. On the left was a strange fur-less creature known as a ‘human male’, wearing a black plain ‘shorts’ and a white ‘t-shirt’. On the top part of the right portion were two tabs: Design, which is currently highlighted, and Detail. Below those tabs were a collection of options for Twilight to customize her ‘human character’.

Twilight ‘hmm'ed’ in wonder as she clicked on the ‘female’ option under the ‘gender’. The male human on the left disappeared, and was instantly replaced by a female girl, who wore a plain white shirt and a red and blue striped skirt.

“Well, I'm no Rarity, but here goes nothing, I guess?” Twilight murmured to herself as she customized her character. She changed the hair style and color almost identical to hers. Eye color, skin tone (though she frowned that there wasn't a purple option), height, weight, and default clothes.

Her female human character had a long straight purple hair, with a lighter shade of purple strand of hair. The eye color was also purple, and the default clothes she chose were also having purple splashes of color here and there.

When she was happy with the result, Spike took a glance and nodded. “Almost as if it's you, huh? Only humanized,” he chuckled.

Twilight just nodded with a small smile of pride as she clicked the ‘detail’ tab. “But she looks like she's around the same age as your character.”

“Well, they are ten year olds, after all,” Spike said, turning back to his screen and exiting the Pokémon Center.

“Ten?” Twilight asked as she typed ‘Twilight Sparkle’ on the Character Name field. “Isn't that um...too young for anypony to go out on their own?” She clicked on the ‘check character name availability’, and a small pop-up with a red background appeared, displaying a black fonted message.

Spaces are not allowed.

“Spaces aren't allowed?” She hovered her mouse and clicked behind the ‘S’ on her character's name.

Spike just chuckled. “Why do you think that I have no spaces on my char's name?”

“I just thought you were too lazy to have any,” Twilight teased after she removed the space. She then clicked on the name check button once again, and two error messages appeared, each on a red-background.

Your character's name should not be the same as your username.

To avoid impersonations and frauds, the game will not accept names of well-known species.

She read the error messages, and felt uncertain of how to react. For one, she felt angry that she couldn't use her own name. Two, she felt a bit awkward and dumbfounded that her name's considered ‘well-known’ for impersonations.

Spike chuckled once again. “Don't worry about it, Twilight. If it helps you feel better, even I couldn't use my own name: Spike or SpikeSparkle. Probably because of what we did in the Crystal Empire years ago.”

Twilight shook her head lightly, and then deleted all characters on the Character Name field. “Well, at least the game is taking early precautions.”

She then typed ‘PrincessTwilight’, but erased it once again. It's been years since she was crowned a princess, yet she still can't help but feel awkward about it. She then smiled and typed ‘BookwormTwilight’ and clicked on the name check button. A green checkmark appeared beside the button, and Twilight actually clapped her hooves cheerfully.

“BookwormTwilight?” Spike read, and shook his head in disapproval.

“What?” Twilight asked with a sad smile. “I like it.”

Spike just rolled his eyes in amusement. “Whatever Twilight. Just create that character already.”

Twilight then clicked the ‘done’ button, and another confirmation sound chirped as the ‘character creation’ window was pulled back up, returning to the previous window.

Her character now stood idly on the opal shadow on the left side of the screen, and the blurred and grayed texts earlier were now clear and readable.

“Pokédex, zero... Time, double zero, colon, double zero... Badges, zero... Hm... Region, unspecified... Mone—”

“Do you have to read all of those, Twilight?” Spike said, sounding annoyed and amused at the same time. “Just play the game already, sheesh!”

Twilight smiled sheepishly as she clicked on the ‘Go!’ button on the lower-right of the screen. “S-sorry about that, Spike,” she said as her character jumped on the spot with one hand extended over her head.

The screen faded into black as a peaceful music played in the background. Suddenly, a group of text that read ‘Select your starting region’ in white appeared in the middle of the black screen. It then hovered on the bottom of the screen as the black background slowly faded into an image of a large map. Twilight noticed that the map was divided by lines, or ‘territories’ or ‘boundaries’ in Equestrian language. Each ‘region’ had names on them, and Twilight recognized a few of them from what she heard from her friends yesterday.

“Pinkie said about Hou-wen,” Twilight mumbled to herself as she hovered her mouse pointer on the region, highlighting its islands and territory in the process. “I guess she started in this area. Now... Rainbow said about uh...” she saw the name, and hovered the mouse over, “...ah, Yu-nou-vah...or however that's pronounced...”

She was about to read the other region names when she noticed a region with a cross-mark on top of it. She arched an eyebrow as she hovered her mouse over the ‘Kalos’ region.

“Coming soon?” she read the pop-up message that appeared when her mouse hovered on the region's name.

Spike took a glance. “Ah, the Kalos region! Home to the many new Pokémon and adventure!”

“So...this region's not available yet, huh?”

“Well duh...” Spike returned to his screen. “Also, hurry up already! Rainbow Dash is impatiently waiting for you!”

Twilight took a glance at his screen, and saw that Spike had an opened whisper chatbox, from the name ‘RainbowAwesomeDash’. She chuckled lightly before returning to her screen.

“Okay, so,” Twilight said, reading the rest of the region names; Kanto, Johto and Sinnoh. “Where should I start?”

“You can pick wherever, Twilight. Most of the girls and I already got our region's eight badges, so we can already travel to the other regions.”

“Oh, well,” she hovered her mouse on the Kanto region, and then moved it to the Johto, and back to Kanto once again. “Um... Well, uh, oh!” She quickly hovered her mouse pointer on the ‘random pick’ button located on the upper-right corner of her screen. She clicked on it, and regions flashed and dimmed like the light decorations on Hearth's Warming Eve.

Finally, the regions dimmed except for the Kanto region, and a congratulatory message appeared before the screen faded towards the region. Afterwards, another loading screen appeared, featuring two dragon-like creatures fighting in the stars.

“The game will let us explore space as well?” Twilight asked as she read the help texts.

“To send whispers, type /w [name] [message] in the chat field.”

“Explore space... Huh...” Spike said in thought. “Would be pretty cool if we could.” He then took a glance on Twilight's screen. “Oh, those are Palkia and Dialga. Legendary dragons of time and space.”

“Whoever made this game sure has a very imaginative...imagination?”

Spike chuckled at Twilight's poor chose of words while she frowned in embarrassment.

Finally, the screen loaded, revealing a small town surrounded by a thick forest on the east and west. The landscape of the area was plain, green, and overall uninteresting. To the south was a beach and to the north was... Twilight's screen couldn't see what was on the north. At the very center of her screen was her character, ‘BookwormTwilight’, which idly looked around from where she stood among a large number of other players ‘passing through’ each other.

Twilight adjusted her screen with the mouse, and she saw that there was a grassy pathway up north.

“Pallet Town,” Twilight read the area's name that appeared on the upper-left corner of her screen.

After adjusting her screen to get a good look at the different angles of her surroundings, she noticed a rather noticable character that stood in front of the closed door of a two-storey building. The said character was a female by appearance, and she was noticeable because of two factors: one, because she appeared to look older than the sea of characters running and standing around, and two, a golden exclamation mark hovered above the character's name, which is also above the character's head.

“Delia?” Twilight whispered the character's name as she hovered her mouse on the character. As she hovered her mouse, her mouse pointer changed into a speech bubble when it's over the players, and the same happened once her mouse was over the female character.

“That's an NPC, Twilight,” Spike pointed out. “You can identify NPCs by those floating-thingies above their heads, or the gray dots in your mini-map.”

“That floating-thingy is called an exclamation mark, Spike,” Twilight said almost automatically as she looked at the upper-right of her screen, and saw a square mini-map displaying three rectangular figures she assumed were buildings, and two gray dots. In the middle of the mini-map was a red triangle, it's elongated point faced south. “And what does an ‘NPC’ mean?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I know what they're called, Twilight, but they change and disappear, depending if you completed a quest, or if you needed to talk to them.” He then returned to his screen, and read Dash's latest whisper message. “And oh, NPC means non-playing character, or non-playable character?” He shook his head. “Whatever. You get the idea.”

Twilight just nodded her head and clicked on the NPC. Her screen suddenly changed angle immediately, where the NPC now stood on the left-hand corner of the screen, facing the ‘real-life’ players. A large slightly transparent speech box took most of the space in the middle and right parts of the screen.

Ah, [BookwormTwilight]. There you are!
I've been looking all over for you!
Where were you?

Twilight rolled her eyes. She wanted to voice out how impossible her claim was, since the town was just too small and only housed three structures. She decided to stay quiet and clicked on the ‘Next’ button.

Anyway dear, [Prof. Oak] came by earlier today.
He said that he wanted to see you in his lab.

You know where it is, right?
If you don't, then just look at your [mini-map] on the
pper-right] corner of your screen.

Twilight blinked. “What? That sounds really really unnatural! It's like she just broke the fourth wall or something!” she voiced out as she clicked on the ‘Accept’ button, which was originally the ‘Next’ button. Upon clicking, the camera went back to focusing on Twilight's character overhead, and the golden exclamation mark on the NPC became a silver exclamation mark. Also, she noticed a small flash on her mini-map, where the largest rectangle was now surrounded by a white highlight.

Spike rolled his eyes. “The beginning quests are like a tutorial, Twilight. You shouldn't really complain much.” He then looked over Twilight's screen. “Now hurry up and get your starter Pokémon so we can invite you to our whisper group conversation.”

“And why was her text lack an open bracket and the letter ‘u’, anyway?” she asked to nopony in particular as she adjusted the camera angle towards the tallest building in the south-east that looked almost like a small hospital clinic back in the lower districts of Canterlot.

“Yeah, that's a common bug,” he shrugged. “It was around ever since the game became live. We already gotten used to it,” he chuckled, “but I know that it's gonna tick you off every now and then.”

“Zip it, Spike,” she scolded him lightly and lamely. She used her magic to press the ‘up’ arrow key, and her character started moving forward to where she was facing: south. She pressed and held down the ‘left’ button, causing her character to turn, and let it go when her character was now facing the right direction. She cringed when she accidentally passes through standing players, or when others run pass her.

Finally, she reached the front doors of the laboratory, where a few number of players were appearing and others disappeared in front of it. She hovered her mouse on the door, and her mouse pointer turned into a opening double door. She clicked on it, and a loading static image filled her screen.

The image displayed a small number of children laughing at the other who was being squirted by water from a giant goldfish that he hooked from the pond surrounded by trees. It managed to made the alicorn smile at how silly the whole thing was.

She was about to read the help text when the lab's environment loaded, showing a really large interior with equipment that made it look more like a library and a school's chemistry laboratory fused together than an actual laboratory that Twilight had in mind.

“Not exactly the kind of laboratory I had in mind,” she said with a frown as she stared at a very crowded laboratory.

She looked at her mini-map, and used it as a guide as she let her character swam through the sea of players. When she saw her ‘point’ already in front of an NPC on the mini-map, she let go of the directional keys and started adjusting her camera angle to see what this NPC looked like, but the sea of players and white texts running around obscured her chances of even seeing one pixel of this NPC.

Her eye twitched slightly. “How am I suppose to ‘talk’ to this NPC if I couldn't even see it?”

“Press the ‘alt’ and ‘o’ keys to open the options window,” Spike responded automatically, “and set the character avatars to ‘simplified’...”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. She turned her head to look at Spike, who was currently in the middle of reading a pretty long list of texts in a website. The background and border themes were identical to the Pokémon website where she submitted her registration form yesterday.

“What are you reading?”

“Monthly newsletter...” Spike replied without removing his gaze from the page. “Dash and Pinkie told me to read it, and,” he smiled, “I'm liking what I'm reading so far...”

“Oh, okay...” Twilight said as she returned her attention back to her screen. She pressed the ‘alt’ and ‘o’ buttons with her magic, and the options window appeared in the middle of the sea of characters and texts.

There were checkboxes and adjustment bars for different settings like music, sound effects, volume, brightness, contrast, and others. She saw the one she was looking for at the very bottom of the window, ‘Character Avatars’, and below that label was a combo box with the text ‘Full Characters’. She clicked on the combo box, and a drop-down menu appeared, displaying only two options: ‘Full Characters’ and ‘Simplified Characters’. She selected the latter, and as soon as she did so, all of the players' characters became a small rod-like avatar, standing only half as tall as Twilight's character. That was a really big relief, although the moving white names of characters are still annoying him. She noticed one of the options labeled ‘Display Character Names’, and she unchecked the checkbox, and the sea of white text instantly disappeared.

Twilight let out a breath of relief. She took a glance at Spike, who was still in the middle of reading the ‘newsletter’ with an excited smile. She smiled as well as she returned her attention to her monitor screen. Whatever he was reading is probably great news for the game's fans.

She closed the options window and stared at the old-looking human professor. She could already tell that this imaginative human creature is old, male, and a professor, because he was wearing a common white lab coat. She found it a bit surprising that a lab coat made for equines would look okay for humans.

She clicked on the NPC, and the camera once again zoomed to the professor for focus, and a large speech box appeared.

Ah! [BookwormTwilight]!
Great to see you, child!

I wanted to ask you a favor.

She clicked on the ‘Next’ button.

You see, I have this dream of seeing
all Pokémon in the world, and to collect
their data.

She clicked the ‘Next’ button once again.

But as you can see, I am too old
to reach that dream.

So I ask you this favor, [BookwormTwilight],
to fulfill my dream for me.

She lamely clicked the ‘Next’ button, sighing quietly as she thought how predictable the story was...

I want to ask you to go to [Viridian City]
and buy me some lunch.

Twilight blinked. She blinked again. And again.

Spike took a glance, chuckled, and returned to his reading.

Twilight furrowed her brows as she clicked on the ‘Next’ button again.

Ha ha ha!
I was kidding about the ‘lunch’ part,
ookwormTwilight]!

But yes, I would like to ask you to
head over to [Viridian City] and retrieve
the item I bought online.

Half of her cringed at another typo and the other half was quite impressed that the story wasn't revealed as flatly as she thought. She thought that maybe this professor's little quest is like a test for him to see Twilight's skills if she will be able to fulfill his dreams. With a determined smile, she clicked on the ‘Next’ button, mentally accepting the challenge.

I could wait for it arrive, but
I am really eager to complete
this device I have been working on.

So, will you accept this favor,
ookwormTwilight]?

She cringed again as she clicked on the ‘Accept’ button.

Suddenly, the screen dimmed, and faded into black, and then an animated image suddenly started playing, showing the professor standing inside the laboratory in his lonesome. There were no chat boxes, mini-maps, or other things in the User Interface that Twilight hadn't focused her attention on. The music changed into something thrilling and exciting as he gestured with his ‘hand’ a simple wooden table by the far edge of the wall behind him. The camera zoomed closer to the table, where three pokéballs lay. Suddenly, a message screen appeared below.

“Do you see those three pokéballs, [BookwormTwilight]? Each contain a Pokémon I used to own, but, as you can see, I am too old to train them. Remember my favor that I asked of you to go to [Viridian City]? Wild Pokémon live in tall grasses, and they might jump at you and attack you, so, you'll need a partner Pokémon for protection!”

The pokéball on the left was suddenly surrounded by a white highlighted border, and the said ball wiggled a bit, as an image box appeared in the very middle of the screen. The image box displayed a small, quadruped Pokémon with greenish skin and dark patches. It let out a cute roar before it sat down and closed its eyes with a big wide smile. Twilight also noticed that there were small amounts of spores floating out from the creature's big flower bud that strangely was planted on its back.

Twilight tilted her head to the side, studying the weird creature right in front of her screen. The texts in the textbox was gone and was then replaced by new ones.

“This is a [Bulbasaur], a [grass] type Pokémon. These Pokémon can be seen napping in bright sunlight. There is a seed on its back. By soaking up the sun's rays, the seed grows progressively larger.”

As the image box and the texts disappeared, the left pokéball's highlighted border was gone, and went to the pokéball in the middle. The image box appeared once again, showing an orange reptilian creature resembling a tailed bipedal salamander with some dinosaur qualities. It also has four small fangs visible on its upper and lower jaws as it breathed out small fumes of flame accompanied by it's cute growl. It then blinked, and started turning around, or rather, it started chasing it's flaming tail.

Twilight actually smiled at how cute and clumsy the creature was when it slipped up and fell on it's belly.

“This is a [Charmander], a [fire] type Pokémon. The flame that burns at the tip of its tail is an indication of its emotions. The flame wavers when [Charmander] is happy, and blazes when it is enraged.”

As Twilight gave some thought on what she just read, the image box and the texts disappeared once more, and the focus was then transferred to the last pokéball on the right. The image box appeared once again, this time, it showed a blue, short, tailed bipedal turtle creature. It let out a cute little cry after it blew a few bubbles over it's head from it's mouth.

“This is a [Squirtle], a [water] type Pokémon. Its shell is not merely used for protection. The shell's rounded shape and the grooves on its surface help minimize resistance in water, enabling this Pokémon to swim at high speeds.”

The turtle's description didn't really caught Twilight's attention, unlike the other two Pokémon, but the orange lizard was the one that caught her attention the most. As the screen faded into black, and then returned to where the camera was focusing on the professor, Twilight pondered at how weird it would be to have something as an indicator of what you are currently feeling. Then again, it was just a game after all, but still, with a smile, she appreciated how creative and imaginative the makers of these creatures were.

It looks like you are having a tough
time deciding, [BookwormTwilight].

But that's okay.
Whoever you choose, I know that it
will be a great partner for you!

Twilight clicked the ‘Next’ button, and saw a small pop-up window on her lower-left screen. The window displayed a pokéball image on the left and the words ‘starter ball received’ on the right.

So, who did you choose?

(Open your [Inventory] by pressing
your [space bar] button on your keyboard.
Right click on the [starter ball] and select
a Pokémon.)

The ‘Next’ button was grayed-out and disabled, and Twilight couldn't click on it. She instead pressed her space bar key with her magic, and an inventory window appeared. The window was divided into two main columns. At the very top of the window were two buttons: a grayed-out ‘Pokémon Party’ and a highlighted ‘Trainer's Inventory’.

The left division of the inventory window displayed Twilight's 3d human character, idly standing on an opal ‘shadow’. Around her character were different box slots with different icons. She identified a few: clothes, hat, shoes, rings, and bag. She didn't know what the others were.

The right division of the inventory window was also divided into six: Personal Items, Pokémon Items, Key Items, Pokéballs, TMs/HMs, and Berries. The ‘Key Items’ sparkled a bit, and Twilight decided to click on it. The right side of the inventory window changed with an opened bag sound effect. On the top of the right division were texts that read ‘Home > Key Items’. The six divisions has become two sub-window divisions, separated vertically. On the left was labeled ‘Keys’ while ‘Quest Items’ was the label on the right, where on that window was where the ‘starter pokéball’ was located, sitting in one of the black grids.

As what she was instructed, she right clicked on the said item, and a small window appeared just below her mouse pointer. The window was separated by three divisions horizontally, and on each division where portrait images of Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle, with their names beside their images.

Twilight blinked, and ‘hmm'ed’ as she hovered her mouse on the three starter Pokémon. She stared at Squirtle, but it didn't appeal her. Charmander, she admitted, was the one that really caught her attention. Bulbasaur was also an interesting creature, she thought, but with a contented sigh, she clicked on Charmander, highlighting the selected division.

...But nothing happened. She blinked, and clicked again. Still nothing.

“You need to double-click it, Twilight,” Spike said, returning his attention to his screen. “And oh, Charmander's a good choice as well. It's going to be tough beating the first two gym leaders, but meh,” he shrugged, “you can catch other Pokémon to defeat them anyway...”

Twilight just nodded with a small smile and double clicked on Charmander. A congratulatory sound effect chirped as a large trading card of Charmander almost filled her screen, with details on the said creature on where the text usually sit in a normal trading card. The details were the same during the cut-scene of the starters from earlier, but she still read it before she clicked on the ‘Close’ button located on the upper-right of the card.

The card disappeared, and she saw her inventory window once again, this time, without the ‘starter pokéball’. She clicked on the ‘x’ button on the upper-right of the inventory window, and she was back to the professor's text-quest window, this time, the ‘Next’ button was clickable.

Ah! So you chose [Charmander]!
That's a great choice, [BookwormTwilight]!

Twilight rolled her eyes with an amused smile as she clicked the ‘Next’ button.

Since you now have your very
first Pokémon, the [Pokémon Party]
menu will now be available when you
press your [space bar].

Go and check it out!

(Open your [Pokémon Party] by pressing
your [space bar] button on your keyboard.)

“Do I really have to?” she asked herself as she hovered her mouse to the ‘Next’ button, but unfortunately, it was disabled. “Eeyup, I have to...” She sighed through her nostrils as she clicked on her space bar.

As the ‘Pokémon Party’ window appeared, a congratulatory sound effect chirped, indicating that she successfully completed the quest. The window was divided into two main columns: her 3-d Charmander looking around on the left, and 6 rows on the right with one row on the top currently occupied by her starter Pokémon.

“Charmander, fire...” Twilight read the texts on top of the left division. “If this is its actual size then...how can I beat that very tall ‘Destructo’ of yours?” she asked as she turned to Spike.

Spike faced her with a curious frown. “Um...you can't. 'Cuz that's suicide, and Dragonite's a final-stage evolution, while your Charmander's on its first-stage. Also...” After flashing her a small smile, he turned back to his screen. “We eight-badge trainers don't usually fight newbies or others with less than eight badges. Unless they're a bot, then we can fight and beat the hell outta them.”

“Words, Spike,” Twilight warned, glaring lightly at the nervously-smiling baby dragon.

“Eheheheh... Uhm... Whoops?”

“Wrong word. Strike two,” her glare intensified a bit.

Spike frowned, and sighed in defeat as his ears drooped. “Okay, I'm sorry... I just...got used to it...” He raised a claw and placed the other on his chest. “I promise to try and watch the words I say from now on.”

Twilight's features didn't change, even after she heard a whisper-notification sound chirped from her speakers. “And how many times have you promised that?”

“Er...” he dropped both his claws. “...many times?”

“Exactly,” she said sharply, and rubbed the dragon's head with her hoof with a frown. “But please keep your promises, Spike...”

“I know, I know,” Spike surrendered to the head-rubs. He preferred this than being grounded, but truth be told, he also felt hurt that he kept breaking his promise, despite how small and senseless it may seem to others. “I'm trying, but sometimes, it just slips...out of habit...”

“I blame that L.o.L. game of yours,” Twilight smiled as she pulled her hoof back and poked Spike's forehead playfully.

“Yeah, that game has the nastiest player-based community,” he admitted with a small smile.

“Promise not to be like them?”

Spike ached an eyebrow. “And what? Ruin my chances with Rarity for being a bad-dragon? Ha! No fu—uh, no way!”

Twilight just rolled her eyes with an amused smile, and the two returned their attention to their own screens. She noticed the blinking whisper window, and opened the ‘arrow-down’ button after she hit the space bar to hide the ‘Pokémon Party/Inventory’ window.

“Reminder: Do NOT talk/give/share/type your username/password to anyone.”

“RainbowA...: bookwormtwilight?”

“RainbowA...: srsly?”

“RainbowA...: lol”

Twilight rolled her eyes as she faintly remembered her first encounter with the acronym ‘lol’. During the rise of easy communications, like chats and texts, Twilight had always assumed that ‘lol’ meant ‘lots of love’, since, from what she observed, many ponies tend to smile when they receive or type that acronym. She then decided to use it while communicating with her friends. Unfortunately, she learned the hard way what it really meant when she received an email from Fluttershy about Angel being really sick, and Twilight responded with it... It took her a week for Fluttershy to accept her apology. Since then, she decided to actually ask instead of observe. Although most of her best friends agreed that Angel deserved it though.

“Bookworm...: Yes Rainbow, this is me...”

“RainbowA...: lol r u sure?”

“RainbowA...: feels like im talkin to a worm”

“RainbowA...: xD”

Twilight rolled her eyes and minimized the whisper window. She then clicked on the ‘Next’ button, and the professor's texts changed.

Looks like you and your Pokémon
already have a strong bond.

That's great. That means you and
[Charmander] are destined to
be partners, and who knows,
maybe the two of you can
accomplish many great things
in life!

“Cheesy,” Twilight murmured to herself as she clicked on the ‘Next’ button, and ignoring the flashing whisper box.

Now then, here's a little
piece of advice before you
go, [BookwormTwilight].

Wild Pokémon will jump at you
and attack you in tall grasses.
So if you want to avoid them,
you'll have to avoid going through
the tall grass.

Twilight nodded to herself as she mentally took note of that as she clicked on the ‘Next’ button.

[Viridian City] is located north
from here.

Take good care, [BookwormTwilight].
And take good care of [Charmander]
as well.

And with that, Twilight clicked the ‘Accept’ button. The camera zoomed away from the professor, and now focused on her character. Before anything else however, she opened Rainbow's whisper box.

“RainbowA...: anyway, spike said ur in kanto?”

“RainbowA...: hello?”

“RainbowA...: hello???”

“RainbowA...: equestria to bookworm”

“Bookworm...: Sheesh Rainbow...”

“Bookworm...: Impatient much?”

“Bookworm...: And yes, I choose Kanto.”

“RainbowA...: lol rly?”

“RainbowA...: this place is boring!”

“RainbowA...: anyway, im outside oaks lab”

“RainbowA...: come out so we can battle!”

“Bookworm...: Huh?”

“Bookworm...: But Spike said you can't...”

“Bookworm...: ...battle new players.”

“RainbowA...: wow dont copy rare's lameness”

“RainbowA...: using dots like that is lame”

Twilight rolled her eyes as she clicked on the door, her character running through the ‘simplified’ players' floating rod-like avatars. A loading image scene filled her screen when her character reached the door. The image showed the cross-out Kalos region, with the text ‘Coming Soon’ in big bold letters. She once again failed to read the help text as the outside environment finally loaded.

“RainbowA...: accept my challenge”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“RainbowA...: click accept”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“Bookworm...: Rainbow...”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“RainbowA...: woops sorry”

“RainbowA...: took you a while to reply”

Spike chuckled. “Yeah, Rainbow's a spammer. You'll get used to it.”

“I sure hope so,” Twilight sighed, and noticed the small window that appeared.

[RainbowAwesomeDash]
has requested a battle.

Badge Level: 0
Battle Mode: Single / Active
Pokémon: 1
Time Limit: 1 min.
Scale: Balance
Fee: $0

“Huh?” Twilight blinked. She had no idea what those details meant. There were three buttons: Accept, Decline, More Info. She clicked on...

“RainbowA...: ur gonna read the info”

“RainbowA...: sigh”

“RainbowA...: this is gonna take a while”

Twilight just chuckled as the ‘Help’ window appeared. The window looked the same as the credits window. It was divided by two sections. The left one was the table of contents, while the right one contained the information. ‘PvP Battles’ was highlighted in the table of contents.

PvP Battles

PvP stands for Player versus Player.
Battle means...obviously, a battle.

Depending on the challenger's battle request, different rules are applied during the PvP match.

Badge Level
0 - Players' badges will not take any effect in battle.
1-3 - Player's first three badges are the only ones that will take effect in battle.
1-6 - Player's first six badges are the only ones that will take effect in battle.
1-8 - All of the player's badges will take effect in battle.

Battle Mode
Standard - This is the traditional turn-based battle. Each player will take turns in attacking.
--- Single - only one Pokémon from both players will battle at a time.
--- Double - two Pokémon from both players will battle at a time.
--- Triple - three Pokémon from both players will battle at a time.
Active - This is the real-time battle. Players will take control of their Pokémon's actions.
--- Single - only one Pokémon from both players will battle at a time.
--- Double - select the Pokémon you wish to control, and set-up the AI of your other Pokémon.
--- Triple - select the Pokémon you wish to control, and set-up the AI of your other Pokémon.

Pokémon
The number of Pokémon you're allowed to have in battle.

Time Limit
Only the challenger can set the timer before sending out the battle request.
By default it is set to one (1) minute.

Scale
Balance - Your Pokémon's stats are adjusted automatically to the level of fairness. Ignores equipped items.
Normal - Your Pokémon's current stats are carried in battle.

Fee
Only the challenger can set the winning fee before sending out the battle request.
By default it is set to zero (0).

“RainbowA...: twilight”

Twilight clicked the accept button, and the background music stopped as her screen froze momentarily before a giant pokéball appeared in the middle. It opened up, and swallowed the whole screen.

“I can't believe you accepted her challenge,” Spike said as he returned to his screen and right clicked on Rainbow's ‘in-battle’ avatar. His character arrived in Pallet Town a few seconds after Rainbow's, but Twilight must have not noticed, since she ‘simplified’ the character avatars, and hid the character names. A small menu window appeared, and he clicked on the ‘Watch’ option.

A new environment loaded. A lighter shade of trimmed grass formed a large circle, and was surrounded by a darker shade of grass. Wooden houses and trees stood in the background. Twilight's character suddenly appeared from one side, looking eager and at the ready, with a pokéball held on her right hand.

[SpikeTheDragon] is
watching the battle.

Challenger [RainbowAwesomeDash]
has challenged [BookwormTwilight]
into a battle!

On the other side, Rainbow's character appeared, also at the ready. Her cyan hair was looking slightly messy, and only reaching to her shoulder-line. She wore a rainbow cap, blue t-shirt with a rainbow-colored jacket, blue jeans that only reached below her knees, white socks and a pair of rainbow shoes.

Challenger [RainbowAwesomeDash]
sent out a Pikachu!

Rainbow's character threw the pokéball towards the battlefield, and it popped open in mid-air. It released a white sort of electrical energy that headed to the ground. It formed a blob-of-sorts, until a yellow rodent materialized in the arena, growling as it did a backflip.

A new chat log appeared in place of the ordinary chat windows on the bottom screen.

In-battle Chat
Reminder: Do NOT talk/give/share/type your username/password to anyone.
RainbowA...: A LITTLE WARNING NEXT TIME?
RainbowA...: aw yeah!
RainbowA...: ur going down twilight!
SpikeThe...: I thought you said you're gonna...
SpikeThe...: ...go easy on her, Rainbow...
RainbowA...: spike
RainbowA...: dont infect me with ur rarity dots

[AJ] is
watching the battle.

[PartyPinkie] is
watching the battle.

[TheFabulousRarity] is
watching the battle.

Twilight's character then threw the pokéball in the air, materializing her Charmander in the battlefield. It breathed out fumes of red flames in the air as it's battle pose.

Suddenly, both the yellow rodent's and Charmander's face portraits appeared on top of the screen: Rainbow's on the right while Twilight's on the left. Beside those images are two bars: the thicker one is colored green, and was marked with ‘H.P.’ while the other one, a thinner one, is marked ‘M.P.’ and ran below the green bar.

Thankfully, Twilight knew what those are. Since the rise of technology, she and Spike had bought a few game consoles and played a few games before the rise of computers and connectivity.

“Ready?” a feminine voice echoed out from Twilight's and Spike's speakers.

Twilight's screen then zoomed to her Charmander's back in a third-pony view. Transparent windows appeared on the far left and right of her screens. The left window displayed the ‘WASD’ keys with labels ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘left’, and ‘right’, and below is the space bar with the label ‘jump’. The right window displayed a mouse in the middle. The left button was labelled with a ‘scratch’ attack. The mouse wheel was the ‘special move selector’ and the right button was the ‘special attack’. Below the right window was another small window with four labels: growl, tail whip and ember. The last one was blank. Beside those labels was an arrow selector.

In-battle Chat
AJ: ya better send me back gold rd.
PartyPin...: woohoo twilight!
TheFabul...: Twilight, you really need to...
RainbowA...: a charmander, huh?
PartyPin...: go knock that pikachu out!
TheFabul...: ...get some outfits.
AJ: the trip from johto to here is expensive.
RainbowA...: this is gonna be awesome!
RainbowA...: also
Bookworm...: Pinkie, what's a Pikachu?
RainbowA...: aj
TheFabul...: Maybe I have some spare.
PartyPin...: thats rainbows pokemon silly
RainbowA...: u need to catch a flying poke
Bookworm...: Oh, ok. Thanks.
RainbowA...: srsly
Bookworm...: Fluttershy's not here?
TheFabul...: Let me check my inventory.
RainbowA...: twilight
AJ: probly feedin her animals sugarcube
RainbowA...: shes prbly feeding her animals
Bookworm...: Good point.
PartyPin...: nice name btw twilight.
PartyPin...: heheheh

Twilight tried scrolling her mouse wheel, and the arrow selector moved to another label. She nodded as her assumption was correct. She tried moving her mouse, and the camera changed angle, as well as Charmander's head, as if following the mouse's direction. The view isn't much though, and Twilight assumed that the camera's probably connected to her Charmander's limited ability of turning it's head.

“GO!!!” the feminine voice said as a match bell rang once.

A lively and full-of-beat battle theme played as the Pikachu suddenly vanished in a blink.

“What the—” Twilight said, but failed to finish as her Charmander was suddenly thrown to the side, clearly hurt. “Wh-what just happened!?”

“She used a Quick Attack,” Spike said as the Pikachu reappeared on the spot where Charmander used to stand. “Pikachu's great in offense and speed, Twilight.”

“Tsk,” Twilight rolled her mousewheel, and chose a growl attack as her Pokémon just got back on its feet.

As the attack was being executed, Twilight quickly moved her mouse so her Pokémon faces the Pikachu. Charmander let out a mighty roar, and the Pikachu showed signs of flinching.

“Why'd you use growl?” Spike asked.

“That's what carnivores do when they get hurt,” Twilight explained, making Spike plant a claw on his face as she double-tapped on the forward, making Charmander run towards the Pikachu.

The Pikachu again disappeared just before Charmander could land a Scratch attack. Acting quickly, Twilight used a Tail Whip, making Charmander turn around sharply, and accidentally slapping its tail right on the Pikachu's face just before it could land another Quick Attack.

Spike actually blinked, surprised, as the battle got more audience and the battle chat roared with chat spam.

In-battle Chat
RainbowA...: wat just happened?

Pikachu was thrown back, landing on the grassy ground on it's back. Charmander growled once again before rushing towards it. The orange lizard jumped, and used Scratch, striking the ground as the Pikachu jumped back on it's feet. Electric sparks sparked from it's red cheeks, and the yellow rodent was suddenly filled with electricity as it shot a bolt towards Charmander.

In-battle Chat
RainbowA...: ha!
RainbowA...: take that!

“What just happened?” Twilight asked as the attack was over. Charmander knelt down, small sparks flew around its body.

“Pikachu's an electric type, Twilight. It can fire bolts of electricity, like your Charmander fires...um...fire.”

“A small lizard-like dragon breathing fire is logical, but a yellow mouse shooting lightning bolts!? What is this!?” she asked with a shout.

“It's a game, duh...” Spike rolled his eyes, enough for Twilight to snap back to her senses.

“Oh, right right...” she chuckled in embarrassment as Charmander breathed out fumes of flame at the still-grounded Pikachu.

“That's one of the disadvantages of electric types,” Spike pointed out. “They're fast, yes, but they need to charge up the amounts of electricity that they released before they could return to full power.”

Twilight took a glance at Pikachu's health bar, and saw that it's M.P. just reached half. It was recovering very fast, she noted. Deciding a physical attack would be futile, and Ember was still on cooldown, she instead made Charmander use Growl.

The Pikachu suddenly disappeared.

Without thinking, Twilight hit the space bar, making Charmander jump, managing to dodge Pikachu's Quick Attack.

Spike whistled in awe as Charmander fired another Ember attack just as soon as it landed. Twilight held the right mouse button as she turned Charmander's point of view towards the standing Pikachu, slowly draining the fire-type's M.P.

Pikachu was hit, but only barely, as it disappeared once again, this time landing a perfect hit on Charmander's side, cutting it's Ember of fury.

Charmander was thrown back, but landed on it's feet, and Twilight slammed the forward button, making Charmander to actually run towards the gasping Pikachu. Clicking the left mouse button, Charmander landed a clean Scratch attack not once, not twice, but three times before Pikachu turned and slapped its tail on the charging fire-type.

“Copy-cat!” Twilight said, firing another Ember attack, but Pikachu jumped to the side and ran towards the Charmander. She turned Charmander's aim, but the fire went out, giving the electric-type a clean Tackle hit, throwing the fire-type back on its back.

“Mana, Twilight,” Spike said as he took note of how Twilight was suddenly into the game.

Twilight took a glance, and Charmander's M.P. was charging pretty slowly. “Oh...” she smiled sheepishly.

As Charmander got back on it's feet, it was struck by a clean Quick Attack. It slammed back to the ground as the Pikachu skidded to a stop. The yellow rodent turned around and fired a bolt of electricity at the still-lying fire-type, landing a perfect hit.

With a twitching eye, Twilight selected the Ember attack and Charmander breathed out a fume of fire, pushing the electric bolt back while the fire-type was still lying on it's back on the ground.

“Wwwowww...” Spike slowly said, genuinely impressed at Twilight's skills. “Didn't even thought that was possible,” he whispered to himself as he eyed the two Pokémon's draining M.P. Even though Pikachu's M.P. was draining faster, Charmander's M.P. didn't even reached a third, and it was already close to zero. “Mana, Twilight,” he reminded. “If you keep that up, your H.P. will be drained in place of your mana!”

Twilight wondered why her Charmander's Ember attack was cut-off when its mana ran out earlier, but decided to push that question aside for later. She halted the attack, and quickly tapped the left direction key twice, making Charmander to roll to the side just before the bolt of electricity could hit it again. The fire-type quickly got back on it's feet, and started to run around the electric-type.

Pikachu kept its attack as it turned, trying to catch the Charmander with it's continuous electric assault as the fire-type kept on running around, having a difficult time to approach the electric rodent.

“Copy...cat...” Twilight hissed as she finally decided to rush forward, disregarding the possibility of Charmander getting hit by the electric attack. Before it did however, she hit the space bar, and Charmander jumped towards the Pikachu and dodged over the bolt of electricity. She held the left mouse button, making Charmander pull it's sharp claw back, preparing to strike as soon as Twilight let's go of the button.

Pikachu's electric field vanished, it's mana drained, and completely vulnerable to the incoming attack. Twilight smiled victoriously as—

“Time Out!”

A feminine voice spoke up, automatically cancelling Charmander's attack as it idly landed in front of the heavy-breathing Pikachu.

Both Spike and Twilight blinked, and both then stared at the health bars. One side clearly was near zero, while the other was still hanging on a third.

The battle music faded out as a congratulatory theme chirped in the background. Then, an explosive message appeared in the screen.

“[Charmander] is the winner!” the feminine voice spoke, minus the Pokémon's name.

As the explosive message vanished, and as the In-battle Chat was flooded with chat messages, the camera slowly spun around the jolly and clapping Charmander.

Twilight tried to read the messages in the chat, but could barely read a single one. Although she saw Rainbow's ‘this sucks’ message in there, as well as her other friends' congratulation messages.

Spike chuckled. “Twilight, you sure are a natural at this game.”

Twilight just smiled sheepishly. “Strangely, I like this game.”

“No kidding,” he chuckled again as their screens faded into loading screens. “So, you want your Suicune back?”

“Uh,” Twilight turned to him with a confused look. “Suicune? What's that?”

Spike rolled his eyes as he pressed the space bar on his keyboard. Twilight leaned closer so she could have a better look at his screen as Spike clicked on Suicune on the ‘Pokémon Party’ window. A 3-d image of Suicune appeared on the left division of the window.

“Oh, that...” Twilight smiled. “Nah, you can keep it,” she said as she read the third line of text on Suicune's texts above it's image.

“Really?” Spike asked as he also read that line.

Suicune
Water
29 days / non-tradeable

“Er...”

“What does that mean?” Twilight asked.

Spike chuckled lightly. “It means that I can't trade it to anyone, sadly.”

“Well,” Twilight smiled as she patted his head. “That solidifies my statement of not wanting it then.”

She then returned to her screen and saw Rainbow's blinking whisper window. She clicked on the arrow-down key, opening the whisper message.

“RainbowA...: i forgot to remove the timer!!”

“RainbowA...: aaarrrggghhh!!!”

“RainbowA...: i want a rematch now!!”

“Bookworm...: Eenope...”

“Bookworm...: :P”