First Hand Experience- Rainbow Dash (Part 1)
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A Game to Fit Your Style

First Hand Experience- Rainbow Dash (Part 1)

Ding!

A waiter came up to the counter, a large platter with three plates of food set atop of it. The waiter casually lifted it with his magic and strode out into the dinning room. There both princesses and Discord sat in front of the large screen TV that had been sitting there since this morning. It irritated the waiter that it hadn't been taken care of earlier but he didn't dare to complain.

He quickly trotted up to the three and cleared his throat to grab their attention. "Daisy sandwich?" he asked glancing between the two princesses. Luna rose her hoof and the plate was levitated to her and a thin smile crossed her lips. "Uhh... pancakes, I assume this is yours princess." he said giving Celestia her food after which she thanked him. "And lastly the... err, Fight Club omelet?"

"We never speak of this." Discord stated as he took his omelet from the waiter.

The waiter gulped before trotting back towards the kitchen. Luna glanced at Celestia as she began to devour her pancakes. Celestia glanced back then glared. "What?" she quickly asked with her mouth full.

Luna recoiled slightly at Celestia's manners. "N-Nothing."

"You're thinking it!"

"Thinking what?"

Celestia groaned. "Never mind." she said turning to the TV. Again it was filled with the Battlefield Three tittle screen with the white box surrounding the multiplayer option. "Will we start soon because I had called off all court duty for the rest of today so we can do this. I still believe this is a bad idea however."

Discord sighed, he was hoping he could finish his omelet first. He snapped fingers and a headset appeared on all of their heads. "Let me explain everything to her when she wakes up." both princesses nodded in agreement even though Luna was excited and practically bouncing on her chair and Celestia tried adjusting her headset to be more comfortable. Again Discord snapped.
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Rainbow Dash

Rainbow laid on the ground. It was hard, cold and smooth. She stood up on all fours but for some reason it felt odd. She looked at the black floor then down at her- "My hooves!" she exclaimed and fell back looking at what use to be her hooves. Instead they were now an appendage with smaller ones extending from it. She wiggled them and she only became more terrified.

She quickly looked over the rest of her body only to find she had completely changed. She was wearing clothing of some sort the covered what she assumed were her legs and below that were something that looked like Twilight's winter boots. She took another glance at her 'hooves' and noticed another piece of clothing. This one covered the whole body part in a black cloth like material.

Rainbow once again wiggled her fingers. She assumed that's what they were considering that primates had things similar to these. Again she looked herself over and covering her chest is what looked like a thick tan jacket without the sleeves and hood. Attached to it are three- what look to be miniature saddlebags without the top, leaving the pouch completely open.

Rainbow had no idea what she was wearing, the whole situation baffled her but at the same time excited her in a frightening way. She reluctantly stood, faltering slightly as she did. Once more she did a double take on herself still fascinated and confused by her transformation before noticing a singular flashing light in front of her. She stepped towards it cautiously. The light continued flashing but it was not intense enough to hurt her eyes.

She stood there a second, confused as what to do with the light. She reached her hand down and touched it. Suddenly the area in front of her lit up in a dim light and words appeared in thin air. She quickly read over them and realized this was a menu of sorts, more correctly one that came from a game. During a brief visit with Luna once Dash had saw something similar to this on her flat-screen.

Rainbow noticed a white box surrounding the word multiplayer and touched it. "Ah, Rainbow, you're awake!" a voice came from seemingly nowhere.

"Discord?!" she called out, turning to face, well, no one. "Where am I? And what they hay did you do?"

"Allow me to explain my dear." his disembodied voice again came from nowhere. "You are inside a video game. Battlefield Three to be more specific."

Dash's jaw dropped, "A video game? Is this supposed to be one of the princess's games?"

"Not exactly." Discord began, "This is one of Luna's games, however, you are in the human version in an 'alternate dimension'. You are still here in Equestria but connected to the other universe through rips in the space-time continuum."

"You mean black holes, right?" another voice came through. Dash immediately recognized Luna's voice.

Again Dash's jaw dropped but was more confused to the whole space-time continuum thing Discord just explained. "If that's what you want to call them. Anyway, you, Dash, have a variety of fun activities to choose from. For now Air Superiority is off limits." Discord continued, beginning to sound a little bored. "Celly and Luna will be providing you with 'useful input' while you play, so try to make this as entertaining as possible."

Dash couldn't believe it, the princesses allowed Discord to throw her into a video game for their own amusement! She felt angry on the inside but also curious as to what the game was like. Nothing better than first hand experience right? And besides, Discord had said something about Air, which means there has to be something fast that lets her cut through the air at high speed. Dash looked behind her to make sure she didn't have wings and sure enough her back was bare.

Dash turned back to the white text. This time a different menu occupied the area and she chose the option labeled as Quick Match. Again the screen changed with another menu. The white box hovered over the start game option. There were more options, one catching her eye. She touched it and a list showed up. To her surprise she wasn't alone. All of her friends were in completely different games however. Dash went to press the 'send game invite' button but an invisible force stopped her hand from doing so.

"I guess I have to go solo." she told herself going back to the last menu. She quickly flipped through the different maps and found one that sounded interesting and also chose a game mode. With everything set she pressed the 'join game' and the whole area blacked out. Rainbow didn't dare to move from where she stood, unsure of what was happening. A moment later a black box with a picture of the map she chose along with the map name -Operation Firestorm- and the server name. She didn't bother to read the server name or the rules.

Again the area went dark before the floor beneath her turned a sandy color and spread out. Rainbow watched in awe as the map developed around her. She was in a relatively flat area with a set of mountains to her right, along with what looked like a road of some sort. Beside that a structure of some sort also developed along with a bulking sand colored thing with a long cylinder on the top protruding outward.

Around the strange object a short wall appeared along with a few white cylinders, some of which were bust open. Once the rest of the base had finished being constructed the map moved outwards, creating the topography along with it. Off in the distance a few square buildings appeared along with a very tall tower of some sort with cables hanging from it. Just as the rest of the map was being finished built a small light-blue rectangle manifested in front of Rainbow.

"Listen closely Rainbow," Luna's voice came through to her. "This is your spawn screen. Here you can chose where you spawn and what weapons and equipment you spawn with." she said almost urgently, like something bad was about to happen if Rainbow didn't choose soon. "Now... I'm exactly sure what the human counter parts of each weapon is, or the vehicles so your guess is just as good as mine."

Rainbow let out a irritated sigh. "So you're basically saying you know the game but at the same time you don't?" Luna replied affirmatively and Rainbow let out another sigh. She quickly scanned over the weapons, each of them looking strange. The 'equipment' looked even stranger as if human technology couldn't any more confusing. Eventually she decided on a naked M416 with a med-kit and defibrillators. For her perk she chose Squad Suppression. For her secondary she chose the M9 bare, then hit 'Deploy' on the screen.

The screen disappeared and the weapon she chose was suddenly in her hands. All the pouches previously empty now held rectangular looking objects, one of which was already in the weapon. She aimed down the sight and approved of it. The whole thing felt comfortable, how the weapon's back end would rest into her shoulder and how her hand comfortably gripped the part that jutted out.

Her index finger rested on another piece of the weapon and she accidentally jerked. The weapon pushed back into her shoulder with a loud crack and a moment later a high pitched cling was heard on the ground. Dash had not at all expected this to happen and her heart pounded in her chest, but her ears were completely fine. She recollected herself and rested the weapon tighter against her shoulder and hesitantly pulled on the trigger again, this time letting out a short burst. She quickly found it not to be so bad, though it scared her the first time.

Curious, Rainbow let the weapon fall, which surprisingly didn't hit the ground. She found it was latched onto the thing on her chest by a rope of some sort. Rainbow reached down and grabbed what was supposed to be her secondary. It was considerably smaller and felt balanced. It had a sleek feel to it and just like the other weapon it had a trigger. She aimed it at the ground and fired to find it to only have fired one out of sixteen.

She just now noticed the elements of her HUD, the health percentage at the bottom right corner of her vision along with what she assumed to be a count for something, but when she pulled the trigger the number went down. She continued to fire the M9 until the number reached zero and the top of the weapon stayed back. Almost instinctively she reached down and pulled out a small rectangle which had small brass, or copper -her guess was as good as any- objects inside. She pressed a small button on the M9 and a similar rectangle slid out, completely empty of the strange objects. She then slid then new one in and released the top which made a satisfying click.

Rainbow was finally starting to get the hang of this, or so she thought. She put the sidearm back into the holster and picked up her primary and reloaded it as well. Just as she was about to head over to the large thing that was colored like that sand around it an large explosion deafened her from behind and caused her to stumble. Rainbow righted herself again and slowly turned around only to find the burning carcass of some odd thing.

She knew it hadn't been there before, which meant it came from the sky. Excitement over took Dash as she quickly looked up for anything that looked similar to the object on the ground, but saw nothing. There was a hint of disappointment growing in her as she continued to look but still found zilch. With her want to get up in the air growing she lazily made her way back to the thing. Once she reached the hulking beast a small 'screen' appeared with the words 'Enter'. She pressed it and found herself inside the thing in an instant.

Rainbow could clearly see the long cylinder in front of her along with a few new elements to her HUD. To the left were white text that said 'IR Smoke' and in yellow text above it 'Ready'. More text appeared in front of her telling her how to control the thing she was in. Once she had most of it down she set her hand on the turret controls and the other on the movement. Her foot pressed on a pedal and the vehicle moved forward, the engine roaring as she went. More text appeared telling her how to use the speed boost. Dash pressed the button and the vehicle lurched forward down the sand road, throwing dust up in its wake.

Dash moved the turret around to get a better look at her surroundings. She noticed multiple squares, both blue and red hoovering in the air. Each of them had a different letter on them. "What are these squares supposed to be?" she asked no one in particular as she came up to a paved road and followed it to the first blue square.

"Those are your objectives. Blue is controlled by your team and red is controlled by the enemy team. Do you see above your minimap a bar with a number on it?" Luna replied.

Dash glanced down and saw what Luna was talking about. She assumed the colors correlated and her team was either losing or winning, she wasn't sure. "Yeah I see it, what about it?"

"That's how many tickets your team has left. Right now you're losing but your team controls most of the objectives." Luna said quickly. "Their team is ticket bleeding, for now."

"For now? What the hay is that supposed to mean?"

"It means the enemy team can recapture those objectives. If you see them begin to flash that means an enemy player or players are contesting it. That means you have to go and stop them." Just as Luna had finished explaining the objective on the far side of the map began to flash, telling Dash where to go. "Go get your first taste of the front lines!" Luna commanded.

Dash drove the vehicle to the far end of the map where she could now see tall metallic cylinders reaching towards the sky. There was also a building of some sort with now walls, just floors with a lot of railing to keep ponies... er people from falling off. "Dash, look out!" Luna yelled into the mic but it was too late.

Dash grunted as a loud bang was heard and the vehicle rocked slightly. The vehicle damage indicator was showing sixty-three percent and an annoying beeping rang through the whole thing. Another round hit, the beeping increased pace and the vehicle health now down to fifteen percent. Dash looked and saw another vehicle that looked like hers except black instead of sandy brown. She waited for it to hit her again.

An explosion rang out and Dash watched as the vehicle in front of her turned to flying shrapnel and burning carcass. Someone ran out from behind cover and ran towards her with a small blue thing in hand. Dash panicked and tried to back up but the thing was moving so slow. The person reached her and the blue thing ignited making a sizzling sound when it made contact. Dash turned the turret towards them to fire but stopped when she noticed the vehicle health gradually increasing again.

After a few seconds the beeping had stopped and her vehicle could function normally again. "That was close." she said to herself, forgetting the rest could still hear her.

"That was rather unimpressive, Dash." Discord said bluntly.

"Give her a break."

"I still have no idea what is going on." Celestia stated before silently cursing under her breath for Luna's yelling. No wonder her walls are sound proof.

"Still, she needs to do better." Discord countered Luna.

Dash ignored them and checked the objectives. There was a single red rectangle in the center of the map. She quickly turned and drove towards that part of the map. The objective was surrounded by two concrete buildings with multiple windows and stories. A few walls were blown out already, the only thing left being a few thing metal pieces crisscrossing. She came into range of the objective which began to tick lightly as a red circle enlarged and emptied before turning blue and started to fill.

Just as it was about to completely fill it stopped and Dash looked at it confused. "Hey, why isn't this thing capturing?"

There was no reply for a short while. "That means there is an enemy contesting your capture. It won't finish until you kill them."

"Whoa hold up! Did you say kill? I can't kill somepony!"

"Calm down Dash, it's a game. You're not really killing anyone. They respawn at an objective or back at base like you will." Luna reassured her rainbow friend.

Dash hesitated. Luna was the princess so she could trust her. Dash searched around the area before spotting someone hiding behind another vehicle of some sort. She fired at it and blue text appeared saying 'Enemy Killed-100' before disappearing. The flag captured and Dash couldn't help but feel bad for killing that person, even though Luna did say they would respawn.

In the bottom of her view Dash saw more text. It read xXR@inbowD@shXx [M1 Abrams] WhimpySnIper. Dash was confused by it, first off why is her name spelled so weird and secondly who the heck is WhimpySnIper?

"Excellent kill!" Luna cheered from the other side along with Discord. Celestia is quiet however.

"I don't see why you would cheer her on to do something like that sister." Celestia finally came through, sounding worried.

"Do not worry sis for Rainbow isn't actually killing anyone, it's all simulated."

"If you say so."

Dash had to agree with Celestia on this one. Why would Luna want her to be killing other pon- err people? "I don't think I like this very much." Dash said a bit hesitantly. "I don't see any point in killing, even if it is just a simulation."

"Oh come on Dash, you're just getting into it. Just give it a few more minutes?" Luna pleaded from the other.

Dash thought for a moment before letting out a defeated sigh. "Fine, but on one condition." Luna was quiet for a moment before acknowledging Dash. "I want to see what this 'Air Superiority' thing is."

There was no rely but Dash could clearly hear Discord and Luna whispering to each other. Finally Luna came back. "Alright, just go ahead and exit that game."

"How the hay do I-" Dash was cut off as a light blue button appeared saying 'Quit Game' and she quickly pressed it. The world around her disintegrated and she was standing in the black room again with the start menu in front of her. She went to the quick game menu again and flipped through the game types until she found Air Superiority and selected a random map to go with it.

The map loaded, this time being a mountainous region with large dense forest surrounding a few scattered buildings. Dash looked at the spawn screen and the only thing listed were F18-Supper Hornets. She pressed one of the buttons and found herself high in the air and in the cockpit of the Hornet. Another tutorial type thing appeared and Dash quickly learned the controls. It was almost as easy as flying with wings!

Again there were objective to capture and dozens of other aircraft cutting through the air at high speeds. Dash used the thrusters to quickly get to the action, but unaware she was being tailed by an enemy plane. Suddenly there was a loud obnoxious beeping like in the last game where the vehicle took damage, but she found there had been no damage done. She looked ahead and saw flashing red words saying Lock before it went solid and the beeping became a solid tone as well.

The solid tone quickly turned to rapid beeps and another hint appeared telling her to use flares. She quickly pressed the button assuming the game knew what was best. The beeping ceased to exist and Dash took a moment to look behind her and sure enough there was another aircraft behind her. Bright flashes came from the other craft and loud metallic pings filled Dash's ears and the damage indicator was slowly going down.

Dash pulled up and the other followed, now bursting their fire. Every now and then they would score a hit even during the loop so Dash hit the break and the Hornet made a sharper loop the second time. The other had not expected this and lost track of her as Dash came around again, this time behind them.

She continued to tail them and when they leveled out she did so as well and aimed the reticule over the enemy before unleashing a furry of bullets at them. The enemy jet caught fire and began to spin out towards the ground, blue text appearing saying Dash had disabled the enemy, not killed. Moments later more text appeared saying she had killed them. Her jaw dropped, she hadn't meant to kill them but it turns out there's no way around it.

Again the beeping began and solidified before rapidly beeping again. Dash panicked and searched for the flare button but found it too later as she lurched forward with two explosions. The damage reading was at ten percent as she began to plummet towards the ground. Dash closed her eyes and readied herself for the impact but it never came. She reopened them to find herself back at the spawn screen. It said in the feed she had 'died' but she wasn't dead. She had finally grasped what they meant by killing her enemies.

She was dead but only in the sense she only temporarily out of the game for her mistakes she made. This new revelation suddenly made Dash less guilty for 'killing' her enemies and had a new found respect for the game. She again pressed on a spawn and found herself in the same vehicle once more.
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To Be Continued

Author's Note

In case you haven't heard of the Fight Club Omelet, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMeeMWcvFc4&list=PLMWfZxj1nTkSuQ5_wKbB512rymBW4q3Oe&index=6

Also if you enjoyed don't forget to like, if not please say why in the comments.