MLP-FiM Plays PKMN-MMORPG

“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.

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 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.

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, 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”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“Bookworm...: Rainbow...”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“RainbowA...: accept”

“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”

“RainbowA...: twilight”

“RainbowA...: twilight”

“RainbowA...: twilight”

“RainbowA...: twilight”

“RainbowA...: twilight”

“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”