Button Mash's Let's Play Channelby ServomooreChaptersLet's Play "Story of the Blanks" Pt. 1Let's Play "Story of the Blanks" Pt. 2Let's Play "Super Filly Adventure"Let's Play "Story of the Blanks" Pt. 1In one of the quieter parts of the fairly quiet town of Ponyville, a foal named Button Mash decided to start a video channel. To date it's the eighty-fifth most popular channel on the whole Equestria Wide Ethernet (or EWE as most call it) just ahead of "Twilight Sparkle's Literary Analysis for The Readers of Tomorrow" and way behind "Rainbow Dash's Work Outs" channel. This is the story of that channel. Button Mash's Let's Play Channel LET's PLAY: STORY OF THE BLANKS Pt. 1 Button Mash double-checked to see if the program was recording video before beaming into the webcam. What he didn't realize was that his face was not going to be in the video, as he had guessed that the computer put that footage in later so ponies didn't get distracted by their own faces. Instead it would just be video of his computer screen. "HI, EVERYPONY! I mean, HI EVERYONE! Mom said it's not politically correct to say 'everypony' anymore. I'm Button Mash, and Mom got me the webcam and the program, so, welcome to my Let's Play channel! Wooo!" He paused to triple check and see if the video was recording. "Okay, good, it's going. I tried to make a video before but it didn't record! I might have hit the wrong button, I don't know. But it's recording now! And for today's video, we're gonna play... We're gonna play... hang on." Button Mash tapped the left button on his mouse a couple times. He was caught by surprise when the game started. "Oh! Well, there we go! We're gonna pla- I mean, let's play 'Story of the Blanks!' I heard it's really fun!" Button Mash skipped reflexively past the title screen and saw the camera pan over orange treetops, over green grass with a few darker green bushes here and there, coming to rest on a yellow pony with instructions in the lower lefthoof corner. "Woah, this game is 8-bit? No wonder it took so long to load! 'Use buttons to move?' Okay, I can do that!" The yellow pony moved across the screen. He moved to the next screen. The yellow pony came to an intersection and stopped. Button Mash squinted at the screen then. "She's got some red thing on her head? Is that a hat? Who's that coming up?" The new purple pony Button Mash was referring to stopped by his yellow pony character. When he saw the text box that came up when she began to speak, Mash gasped. "It's Ms. Sparkle! I didn't know she was in a game! I guess it makes sense, since she's really famous and stuff. Might be a tie-in or-" Button Mash started Ms. Sparkle's text asking the yellow pony what she was doing out on her own and then was really taken aback. "Apple Bloom!? Sweetie's friend is in a video game! Wow, that's too cool! Does she know about this? I've gotta ask her if she knows about this! Golly! But I've got to finish the video first." As surprised as he was, Button Mash had continued to skip through the opening conversation until he came to a part of Ms. Sparkle and Apple Bloom's conversation where Bloom was asking to come along into the Everfree Forest and Sparkle was only letting her come along if the little filly promised to stay close at all times. "I promise, Ms. Sparkle! So we're going to the Everfree Forest. Okay. I've never been there. Everypony says it's really scary." The sprites went up to the forest area, Apple Bloom just behind Ms. Sparkle but seemingly controlling her. As they were about to enter the orange opening to forest he remembered something. "Oh, Sweetie, if you see this tonight, could you see if I left my recharger for my joyboy over at your sister's? I'm pretty sure I did. Thanks!" What completely escaped Button Mash';s attention was that in the real Ponyvile, the real Apple Bloom and Twilight Sparkle found themselves compelled to leave their homes and converge on a path that lead into the Everfree Forest. They said the same things to each other that were said in the game even though many of the things were not true of them at all. Then they trotted into the Everfree Forest in the same manner as Button Mash moved them in the game despite their intense desire not to. Meanwhile the sprites in Button Mash's copy of Story of the Blanks proceeded through uneventful forest screens until they got to one where the two sprites needed to walk across an array of planks. "Is this an obstacle course? Okay, real gameplay's started everyone, let's do this!" Mash walked across one stretch of planks, then another, a third, a fourth, and he was done. He paused again. "Is... Is that it? Wow, kind of a lame level. Oh well." The pair of sprites went through a couple more uneventful levels before stopping outside a tree house. A grey pony seemed to be walking out of it. Mash read Ms. Sparkle's sprite box call her Zecora and he gasped again. "Zecora!? The grown ups used to say she's really bad! She must be the boss of this level!" Button Mash narrowed his eyes then at the sprite. "You're going down Zecora!" But then Zercora's text boxes showed her thanking the ponies, warning them not to stick around while rhyming. Then she went back inside, while Mr. Sparkle's sprite went off the screen. "Wait, that's it!? Lamest boss fight ever! I thought this game was supposed to be fun! Sorry, everypony, I'm sure it'll get better." "Butttttonnn!" his mother called from downstairs, "don't forget to take out the garbage !" "I WON'T, MOM!" Button answered. Then he turned to the cam. "That was my mother... but you probably knew that. Oh well, I can just cut that out later." He would forget to do that before uploading the video. The sprites went back through screens he'd already seen, and he growled in frustration. But then there was a change: a tree laid across the pathway. Ms. Sparkle's text box asked where it has come from. Then she floated it out of the way. "Hey, that was kinda cool." Mash said, trying to remain excited about the game for the audience if nothing else. Then the perspective in the game panned down to reveal a bunch of trees blocking the path. Ms. Sparkle's text box expressed frustration, though Mash was sure she was less frustrated than he was feeling. Then she moved to start floating the trees away, but didn't. "Is, is she gonna move those trees?" Mash asked. He moved Apple Bloom's sprite up to her. "What do you mean not now? Are you gonna move those trees or not?" Button Mash moved Apple Bloom's sprite back up the screen for want of something else to do. He saw a grey pony with a yellow tail. "Is that Ms. Hooves?" The new grey pony then went off into the woods. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter. I promised Ms. Sparkle that I was going to stay by her side at all times, and that's what I'm gonna do! Besides, it's probably just a trick that causes a 'game over' if I follow her." He moved Apple Bloom's sprite back down by Ms. Sparkle and waited. And waited. And waited. He perked up when he suddenly heard a noise from his computer, but then recognized it as being an instant message. He checked it. "Oh, it's Sweetie. She said she found my recharger. Knew it was over there!" He typed a quick message thanking her and then went back to the nothing that was happening in the game. He resumed waiting. After a minute, he lost patience. "Okay, this game is stupid! It's overrated and no fun and I'm not playing it anymore! Miss Sparkle and Apple Bloom should sue!" He tossed the controller away, then remembered his cam. He looked into it and smiled sheepishly. "So, uh, please like and subscribe for more great videos! See you next time! Bye! Now which button is it? That one? No, that one? Uh uh. Is it that o--" *** Out in the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom abruptly found themselves able to control their own movements when Button Mash turned off the game. A very frightened Apple Bloom pleaded for answers from her sister's friend while Twilight ran through her memory banks for answers. This did not seem to be Discord's doing. It was much too subtle, too small. She dismissed the possibility it was some bizarre mind game Trixie was playing as well for essentially the same reason. "Well. I'm not going to find out who did it by standing in the forest at night," Twilight muttered to herself. She put a hoof around the weeping Apple Bloom's shoulder. "C'mon. We're gonna find out who took us out into the forest and give 'em a piece of our minds!" After waiting a moment to let Bloom calm down, they trotted back out of the forest. Coming Soon: LET's PLAY: STORY OF THE BLANKS PT. 2 Let's Play "Story of the Blanks" Pt. 2Button Mash's Let's Play Channel LET'S PLAY: STORY OF THE BLANKS Pt. 2 Note: This story obviously contains Story of the Blanks spoilers. "Alright, alright! I'll pay the other half of the game! I've heard all of you making fun of me for getting stuck halfway through! You're all jerks!" On that less-than-ingratiating note began Button Mash's second video for his Let's Play channel. He'd been too discouraged by the bad traffic at first to continue making videos. When his video suddenly became somewhat popular, he saw that it was because fillies and foals were making fun of him for playing the game badly and was too embarrassed for two weeks to follow it up. Now three weeks after he posted his first video he was going to try and make things right as best he could. He skipped impatiently through the opening dialogue even faster than he had the first time. It didn't occur to him to just cut that part out of the video. But that was to be expected considering he was unaware that the webcam footage of him still wasn't appearing in the video. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Button said in response to all the Apple Bloom and Twilight Sparkle's text. He really began to lose it halfway through the trek to Zecora's house in the forest. "COME ON!" He yelled at the game. He seemed to inch along to the part of the path where the trees had fallen. Finally, he saw the sprite for the pony he had thought was Mrs. Hooves ran into the forest. " Okay, Snips told me I'm supposed to follow her here." Button Mash said. "So if it's an instant game over, he's a jerk!" Button had Apple Bloom's sprite follow the gray sprite into the forest. He was a bit taken aback when he saw the new screen. "Woah, this place looks really dark," Button observed, "I really hope something doesn't just show up and kill Apple Bloom." Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom had naturally told everyone about their weird involuntary journey to the the Everfree Forest, although word hadn't gotten to Button Mash as he was hardly the most social of ponies. If Button Mash had waited only one week or maybe two, then the ponies would have been on the alert that something strange could happen to Apple Bloom and Twilight at any time. They would have been followed as the game took control of the two pony's movements and had them converge on a path in Ponyville that led to the Everfree Forest. But as it was, by three weeks their guard was down, and the Twilight and Apple Bloom found themselves moving about under the game's control without anyone catching on but the two of them. Once again Twilight found herself telling Apple Bloom she was going to the Everfree Forest and Apple Bloom was begged to go along without wanting to. They spoke quickly as Button Mash was skipping through the dialogue as he made his video. Their trek through the forest was practically spastic, impatient as Button Mash was. When they arrived at Zecora's house, she once more came out and said the game dialogue to them and then went back inside. The pair then went down the same path where weeks ago they'd encountered the fallen trees. Apple Bloom once more turned and saw the gray mare enter the forest, and this time, she followed. When she did so, the game loosed its control on Twilight Sparkle. It had no use for her for several levels. "Sweet Celestia, that was awful." Twilight said as she felt herself regain control of her muscles and ability to speak. She turned from the barricade of logs to where it roughly sounded like Apple Bloom had entered the forest. "Apple Bloom! Bloom, where are you?" In her panic, despite the multitude of dangers the Everfree Forest offered at night, Twilight ran into the dense foliage. There was not a sign of the filly anywhere to be seen. Suddenly, a wild cockatrice appeared! It was in front of her! It screeched and it's eyes glowed red, unleashing it's pernicious petrifaction powers! "There's no time for that!" Twilight yelled as she clapped her hooves down on its shoulders, catching it off guard and dimming its eyes. "Look. did you see a filly come through here: Yellow with red hair and a bow?" It shook its head and before it had its wits about it, Twilight was tearing off in another direction after the missing filly. "I hate this level, this forest is too dark and creepy." Button Mash commented. When Button Mash found himself in a village level, he perked up. "Oh, that's better! Hey, there's a character!" Button Mash went to the closest character. "Sunny Town? Must be a nice place. What's going on over at those tables?" "Uh, nothing, I guess. That's dumb. Tables should have things on them. Hey, another character!" "What's she talking abo- wait, does she have a crush? Gross." Not wanting to stick around the icky mare with a crush, Button Mash hurried over to the next visible character, although the novelty was beginning to wear off. "What's this colt's problem?" "Oh no, he's the one she's crushing on?! Ugh. Wait, I'm not gonna-" "A fetch quest! You stupid game!" Apple Bloom would have been paralyzed with fear if she still had control over her muscles. This was so much worse than when she'd had the cutie pox. She'd been scared ever since some mysterious magic took control of her movements, horrified when she left Mrs. Sparkle for the darkness of the forest, but this was the worst. The unnatural sunlight was unlike anything she'd ever seen before. It was sickly and wrong. It felt as if a pestilential sun provided that light and heat. She couldn't speak as Button Mash unknowingly guided her through the level. She completed the fetch quest without even noticing what was happening. All could think about was how the voices of the ponies she was encountering in the village. To Button Mash it was only more of the same text, but to her their voices sounded hollow and wrong. They sounded like a machine making voices, as if that magic music machine she'd once heard Vinyl Scratch use when she visited Ponyville was being used to make voices. Apple Bloom hated that sound more than the shriek of a cockatrice, and could do nothing but hope it would all soon be over. Button Mash finished the fetch quest without incident. Then he completed a block pushing puzzle after only four restarts. He avoided talking to any other ponies out of concern they'd send him on another fetch quest as he passed through the village. "They always have the important house somewhere away from all the others." Button Mash said to the webcam to explain why he was just walking through a village level without checking any of the houses. When Apple Bloom was at the last house, Button Mash figured the well must have been important or else the gamemaker wouldn't have bothered to include it, not like that foolishness with the tables. He retrieved the item. And went into the cottage. It was almost empty except for a table, which Button Mash found was once again non-interactive. "I already said tables should have things on them, you dumb game! So now what? There's got to be something somewhere in here..." Button Mash pushed Apple Bloom's icon against the walls until she reached the fireplace. "Oh yeah, the fireplace. Like I'm just supposed to know that! Dumb game..." Back out in the Village in Everfree Forest and yet not at all in Everfree Forest, Apple Bloom saw the contents of the fireplace. It was a filly skeleton with red bones in the black coal dust. Button Mash hadn't let her talk to the mysterious ponies outside that might have given her insight into what was happening, but that hardly mattered as far as her fear went. For the first time, the game's emotions reflected her own, although inadequately. "No no no no!" Apple Bloom yelled. The unnatural light gave way to darkness. Pitch darkness, save for a shaft of infernal red light that poured from. The aired filled with a ghastly noise. It sounded like the shuffling approach of some horrible being coming through a deafeningly loud but heavily distorted speaker. Apple Bloom wished stronger than she'd ever wished for anything in her life that the whatever controlled her movement would take her out of that cottage. "Is that a skeleton!? Ah!" When the screen went black around Apple Bloom except for a shaft of red light, Button Mash didn't take the situation any better than the real Apple Bloom did hers. "AAAAAAUUUGGGHH!" He shrieked. In fact he dropped the controller and backed away into the corner. If his webcam had been recording footage of him, he would have been a target of every bully at school the next day for how wimpy he seemed. He waited for the gave's weird sound to end, hoping it would be either a game over or a cut scene which would end quickly. When it became clear that the sound was looping, he crawled back to the screen. He saw that Apple Bloom was still standing there, seemingly okay, with only one thing to do. "I don't like scary games! They're... they're too scary!" Mash whined as he controlled Apple Bloom back through the level to the village. When he reached it and saw what a black, decayed ruin it was, he became so scared the blades on his beanie spun like a helicopter. "IT WAS A GHOST TOWN ALL ALONG!" Mash screamed. He tried to dash through it. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Mash responded. He made little progress before the next cut scene began. "IT'S A ZOMBIE! IT PROBABLY WANTS TO EAT MY BRAIN" Mash yelled. He'd completely forgotten about doing game commentary or anything and just wanted to get out of that village. "Button!" came the voice of Button's mother through the door, "are you playing a scary game before bed time!?" "N-n-no, Mom!" Button answered, his fear of the video game completely overwhelmed by his fear of his mom's disapproval. "Keep it down anyway: Your father has a big day at the glue factory tomorrow and needs his rest." Button's mother went back downstairs after that, allowing him to return to being scared of the game. Out in the undead village of Sunny Town, Apple Bloom was standing hooves away from a black pony skeleton with red light emitting from its eye sockets. It was speaking in a dead digital language to her, not that Apple Bloom would have listened anyway. While she couldn't so much as twitch her nose unless the game wanted her to, her spirit inside her body was desperately trying to leave her body through her backside and sprint off to anywhere these ghosts were not. She was not successful enough at this. "I don't care what you have to say!" Mash whispered loudly as he skipped through the dialogue, "Get me out of here!" Knowing Apple Bloom as well as he did by proxy through Sweetie Belle, he knew she'd never stand a chance in a fight against any zombie tougher than a dandelion and steered her out of the village. He made a hushed squeak when he saw another zombie coming for him, skipping through its dialogue. "Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeon!" Mash said as he just barely pushed the rock out of the way in time to escape. At least it felt like it was just barely in time. His legs began to spasm against the floor and his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest. On the next screen, he ran into another cut scene where a zombie had something to say to him. He skipped through the dialogue without reading a word. "I already said I don't care! You zombies talk each other to death!? I just want out!" On the next screen, he barely kept from shrieking as a mass of zombies came out of the red ground to pursue him. "Sorry game, I didn't mean that!" Button steered her as best he could through seemingly endless ranks of zombies springing up from the ground. It was fortunate that he'd set the game on easy mode though he'd never admit that he'd done so while being recorded. "When is this gonna end?!" Button whimpered as he went through the last screen with zombies on it. When he reached a screen with black ground, he squeaked again. "Now I can't see the path! Are there more?" Cautiously he guided the filly sprite through the black levels, but didn't encounter anything but a trail of red glowing spots on the ground. He was soon upon a familiar figure. "Mrs. Hooves is gonna save me? I am so dead!" But then he reached the sprite. "Ruby? Who's Ruby? That must be Mrs. Hooves's middle name." Still a dialogue skipper, Button didn't read any of the dialogue for the next scene. Red zombies appeared around them suddenly and began to close in. "Save me, Mrs. Hooves! You're a pegasus! HEEEEELLLPP!" A white halo appeared on the corner of the screen which then drifted to over the two pony sprites as the zombies were almost upon them. "What's that!?!" Button asked as the screen flashed white, and then he was on a new screen. It certainly looked less scary than the previous levels. Then a familiar figure appeared. "Yay, Mrs. Sparkle! Now she's a real hero! That must have been her magical circle thing!" Button's happiness that Twilight Sparkle was there didn't keep him from skipping through the dialogue. He cheered immediately after when he saw Apple Bloom and Twilight leave the forest. "Yaaaay! I won! I beat the game!" He was too busy cheering to pay attention to the game until he was back at the title screen. He looked into the webcam. "So, that was a weird game. It was really hard, too! It could have been more fun and I would have liked it if it was less scary. So please like and and subscribe for more videos! Bye everypony!" Button Mash turned the game off. Out in the Everfree Forest, a place called Sunny Town and those who dwelt in it once more winked out of existence. A pony and filly on the outskirts of that forest found themselves in control of their bodies once again, and as soon as they did, Apple Bloom convulsed from the many muscle cramps and shrieked in panic. She was naturally an order of magnitude worse than she had been three weeks earlier, so much so that Twilight became both afraid for her and afraid of coming near her. That fear doubled when Apple Bloom began flailing about and bucking at random. She looked like she'd practically gone feral. "Apple Bloom, calm down! It's okay now! Calm. Down." Twilight yelled, which apparently calmed Apple Bloom enough to speak coherently instead of shrieking. "Et was terrible! There was a village, an' it was fulla ghosts and zombies!" Even to someone as acquainted with monsters and the unpredictability of the Everfree Forest as Twilight, that sounded like Apple Bloom's imagination running away from her. "You're not making sense, calm down." Twilight said as reassuringly as she could. "They were all talkin' in creepy voices, et was bright, a skeleton in a fireplace! And there was Mrs. Hooves! I don't..." Apple Bloom plomped awkwardly down on her haunches, almost fell over, and began just sobbing. Twilight hesitated a moment, unsure if she might start trembling herself and manage to make it worse, but then she took a few steps over to hug Apple Bloom. "Hey, hey. We'll get to the bottom of this. It'll be alright." Apple Bloom glared her angriest up at the unicorn in response. "HOW DO YA KNOW!? ET GOT YA'LL TOO! ET'S MAGIC IS STRONGER THAN YOURS! YA DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" Twilight stopped dead at that. "Knowing" was one of her deepest passions, after all. She thought for a moment. Apple Bloom's expression faltered, her clearly desperate for an answer beneath the need to have lashed out. Twilight sighed. "I don't know. But it doesn't hurt me to hope." Apple Bloom sniffed deeply, and offered her forelegs to Twilight, wanting a hug. Twilight obliged, and then the pair went to their homes. Let's Play "Super Filly Adventure"Button Mash's Let's Play Channel LET'S PLAY: Super Filly Adventure Note: This story obviously contains Super Filly Adventure spoilers. "Hi! Welcome to Button Mash's Let's Play Channel!" Button Mash yelled. "For today's video, a bunch of ponies asked that I play 'Super Filly Adventure,' so here we go!" Button Mash's mood regarding his channel and the bunch of ironic followers he had attracted improved significantly after the ad revenue rolled in. What hadn't improved was his ability to incorporate his webcam footage into his videos, so his videos continued to only contain gameplay. The game's title screen came up. "Yeah! Super Filly Adventure by Steel Udder Productions! They make all the best games like... uh, Super Filly Adventure! Yeah, okay, I shoulda done my homework. Again. Well, moving on." The screen changed to an image of what looked like Ponyville where a yellow filly with a green mane and tail walked onscreen. "So that's me? Huh. She's pretty." "Pinkie Pie? I know her! She's the partyingest pink pony possible!" Button Mash observed. Since it was Pinkie Pie, he decided to actually read what she had say. "My character is named Jade? She's got a good name, like Sweetie Belle." "A party for me! Jade's so cool!" http://i.imgur.com/zQfuRwf.png "Okay, Jade, we're gonna give out those invites like a champ!" Two ponies appeared on screen from seemingly nowhere, and he went to talk to them. "It's Mrs. Sparkle and Mrs. Hooves again. They must be getting really rich from all the games they're in." "Great, off to a good start." Mrs. Hooves was not on his list of ponies to invite, so he went to the next screen. There was a sprite of Fluttershy. He gave her the invitation. "We're totally beating this game, Jade!" Mash yelled with a hoof pump. As soon as Button Mash's character Jade moved from the screen the sprites of them been standing in, Twilight Sparkle and Derpy Hooves became free to move. "It's that strange magic that took over Apple Bloom and me last week! It controlled how we moved and spoke!" Sparkle said. "Oh, right." Derpy replied, wanting to cover the fact she hadn't heard about that. She would have questioned how she'd teleported to where she was currently standing in Ponyville but she was so used to not really knowing where she was it was practically second nature. "And this time, it's manifested some abomination in roughly the shape of a filly which speaks in a strange electronic voice!" Twilight added. "I guess Apple Bloom might not have been imagining that village out in the forest." "Uh, yeah." Derpy offered. Pinkie Pie galloped up to Twilight then, her ability to move having recently freed up as well. "Twilight, I think that magic thing that got you and Apple Bloom is back and- EEEEEEK!" Pinkie was taken over by the game's magic and compelled to go to gallop to Sugarcube Corner since Jade's sprite was going in that direction and the game wanted to make sure Pinkie was present if Jade walked into the bakery. "Right, Pinkie, but this time, things are going to go differently." The newly freed Fluttershy came flapping up to Twilight then. "Twilight, there's a strange creature trotting through Ponyville! It's like a yellow filly, but it's... off, and it's voice is strange. It doesn't even sound like a voice! And it made me stand in place until I talked to it" With a statement like that coming from a pony as compassionate as Fluttershy, it was clear that Jade was truly an unsettling presence in pony. "And we're going to do something about it! Tell the other keepers that can still move to come with me to the Ponyville Library! I've got an idea for how to deal with it!" Twilight and Derpy began galloping to the Ponyville Library while Fluttershy went off in the opposite direction to spread the word. Twilight turned her head to Derpy as they galloped. "Uh, Derpy, you don't need to come if you don't-" "Don't worry, Rarity! I'm not scared!" Derpy replied with a beam. Twilight sighed. Button Mash had stopped by the Carousel Boutique to give Rarity an invitation and was now talking to Rainbow Dash. "Heh heh, whoever made this game sure knows these ponies!" Button Mash said. Mash wanted to keep talking to Dash even after Dash got her invitation. In the course of the conversation, Dash felt compelled to demonstrate her ability to make it rain, and so a cloud appeared out of nowhere for Dash to bounce on. "Hehehe, she's so much fun!" Button sighed, staring at the yellow sprite with her green mane. "I like you, Jade." Button sent Jade to the left, which was apparently where Sweet Apple Acres was in the game with Applejack waiting. The pair had a little chat, and eventually Applejack asked for some help with baking muffins. "Oh man, I've got to cook muffins now? I guess you can't have a party without muffins, right Jade?" The pair entered the kitchen and went through a little minigame wherein he was asked to choose the right ingredients to add to the mix. "Wow, baking is even easier than Mom makes it look." Applejack gave Jade a muffin. "Okay, I bet this muffin is how you regenerate health." Button Mash said as he sent Jade off to the right, forgetting that he'd already invited everyone on his list of objectives. He saw Zecora on the edge of the Everfree Forest. "Hey, it's Zecora. This time I know she's not going to be the final boss." Button still felt like trotting up and talking to her. "Oh yeah, if it's like the last game, that's definitely true! Thanks!" Twilight Sparkle with considerable help from Spike and her friends had set up all the magical monitoring equipment she'd once used to test Pinkie's "pinkie sense" with added satellite dishes and broadcasting antennae in the Ponyville Library. She might not have included quite so many hamsters on wheels, attached so many racing stripes, sprinkled quite so much glitter, and probably there would have been fewer ribbons if she'd worked without Pinkie and Rarity, but the machine was in good working order. "Alright, I think we're ready to begin scanning for the source of this magic." Twilight told Rarity, Fluttershy, Derpy, and Spike, the only ones available since Dash and Pinkie were still trapped in and around Sugarcube Corner. "Whatever this magic is, it's really scary." Fluttershy said. "Obnoxious too." Rarity added. "It's as if it knows all of us in Ponyville, but reduced us to our simplest interests and most obvious personality traits in what we have to say! I'm not just a pretty face with a passion for fashion!" Twilight activated the machine and scanned the read out carefully. "I'm not getting any useful findings." Twilight said. Her horn went aglow and she adjusted the scan frequency. She didn't want to offend Fluttershy and thus didn't mention that her first scan was looking for evidence Discord was the culprit, but his magic was actually lower than usual, as if he was taking a nap somewhere. She saw some spikes in the data after she adjusted the frequency. "Ah ha! I've found something!" "Oh my, can you lock onto the source?" Fluttershy asked. "Certainly, and I think I've already found it!" Twilight adjusted various settings on the equipment. "Okay, wow, it's a lot closer than I would have thought! In fact it's downstairs in... Spike, go turn off the microwave." "Ooooh, sorry." Spike sheepishly said as he went to do so. Once that was done, the signal died. "Shoot! Well, let's adjust the scan." Twilight made another adjustment and this time, the flow of data was nearly constantly spiking. The amount of magic would be like if Discord and Luna cooperated to cast a spell on all of Ponyville, such was its power. "Holy udders! I've found it this time! Now let me see if I can- WOAH!" Twilight and her friends found their bodies abruptly taken over and they began galloping and flying to Sugarcube Corner. The yellow blocky filly-shaped thing was on its way there, after all, and the game had planned a party for it. "Yay! Time for a party!" Button Mash cried when he brought Jade into the Sugacube Corner and Pinkie announced it was party time. He was delighted at the sight of all the mares at his party, since he had been told a lot of mares being at a party was a good thing. Then Pinkie said she had a present for Jade. "Jade's getting a warrior's outfit? Okay. Wish we had an adventure to go on where-" There was the sound of a dragon's roar in the game. "Woah, that dragon sounded big and mean enough to burn down Ponyville!" "That's what I said, Mrs. Rarity!" Jade volunteered to put a stop to the dragon's reign of terror, and was a moment later outside wearing her new present. "Oh wow! Jade looks so cool!" Button Mash skipped through the new dialogue until he reached what looked like a combat level where Jade would be fighting a dragon. "Okay, Jade, time to... Buck this dragon's ownage!" Thirty seconds later, this happened: "Oops. Sorry, Jade." Once the yellow and green pixelated monster had flown away, the Keepers of the Elements of Harmony made for Ponyville Library again. "What a lame party that was!" Pinkie griped as she bounced along. "Everypony just standing around while I give the new pony a present!? BORRRRRING!" "At least it seems to be keeping that dragon from attacking Ponyville." Fluttershy offered as she looked up at the battle in the sky. "Oh dear! Looks like it just die- oh wait, it's back and shooting magic at the dragon again." "I don't know why we're not going up there and showing that dragon who's boss!" Dash complained. "It barely looks bigger than Princess Celestia!" "Dash, with a mind-controlling, teleporting magic that effects us all on the lose, a small dragon is the least of our problems!" Twilight said as the ponies entered the library. "Maybe, we could talk it out of attacking Ponyville instead." Fluttershy offered. "You can't talk a magical force that controls what you say into or out of things!" Twilight said as she returned to her place at the machine before they'd all gone to Sugarcube Corner. She adjusted the settings and found the traces of magic again. "Okay, everypony, we've got to hurry before the magic takes us over again! We need to convert this machine into a magical disruptor!" "I've never heard of a magic disruptor." Rarity said in befuddlement. "Of course not! That's because we're inventing it now!" Twilight began giving out orders like a princess and her friends scrambled to make the necessary changes. It was fortunate for the ponies in the library that the portion of the game where Button fought the dragon was so hard. Up in his room, Button fought the dragon five times before he first came even halfway close to winning. But even after nine times, his resolve didn't lessen at all. He wasn't about to let Jade be denied her moment of glory. On the tenth time, he finally won the fight. "Yes, we totally beat the dragon! Jade, we rock!" "Okay, I'm going to attempt to send the jamming spell!" Twilight yelled to her friends. With a glow of her horn, she sent a magic-scrambling pulse of energy through Ponyville. The result fell far short of her estimations but she might not have been disappointed. "What do you see?" "Looks like the little yellow filly-like thang beat the dragon. The dragon disappeared and now the filly thang is flyin' down to Everfree Forest fer some reason." Applejack answered. "It would make sense if it came from the Everfree Forest. Okay, I'm going to keep monitoring the magic. keep an eye on the forest in case something strange comes out of it." Up in his room, Button was surprised at the screen that came up after her beat the dragon. "Static? I've never had static on my computer." "Why are we out in the forest?" "That's what I just asked." "Don't worry! I'll get you out of this somehow!" Button's words weren't even reassuring to himself. "Please don't cry, Jade." He begged meekly. Barely had Button Mash finished saying that when he walked onto the next screen. It much darker than any previous level of the game, but he had no trouble seeing a dark pony shape coming for Jade's Sprite. He tried to steer Jade off the screen, but there was no escape. This felt very different from the earlier battle with the dragon. This didn't seem like something where Jade would just start over if she lost. This portion of the game was unbeatable. This was... wrong. "No, no! Don't you dare hurt her! Stop it!" There was nowhere for Button to control Jade to go and the dark sprite was soon touching hers. Button leapt up to turn the game off but did not do so fast enough to avoid seeing this screen. "MOMMMMM!" Button Mash yelled as he dropped the control and galloped from the room. "THE GAME KILLED JADE! SHE WAS LIKE MY BEST FRIEND AND IT KILLED HER!" Just as with his previous video, the instant Button turned off the game, all the beings generated by the game in Ponyville vanished and every real pony resumed control of their bodies. "Oh, Button." Button's Mom consoled after he had galloped up and hugged her, "There, there." She could afford to be pleasant and comforting this time because he was playing a horror game at a much more reasonable hour. Anyway, it was nice that he clearly wasn't becoming desensitized to violence.
Let's Play "Story of the Blanks" Pt. 1In one of the quieter parts of the fairly quiet town of Ponyville, a foal named Button Mash decided to start a video channel. To date it's the eighty-fifth most popular channel on the whole Equestria Wide Ethernet (or EWE as most call it) just ahead of "Twilight Sparkle's Literary Analysis for The Readers of Tomorrow" and way behind "Rainbow Dash's Work Outs" channel. This is the story of that channel. Button Mash's Let's Play Channel LET's PLAY: STORY OF THE BLANKS Pt. 1 Button Mash double-checked to see if the program was recording video before beaming into the webcam. What he didn't realize was that his face was not going to be in the video, as he had guessed that the computer put that footage in later so ponies didn't get distracted by their own faces. Instead it would just be video of his computer screen. "HI, EVERYPONY! I mean, HI EVERYONE! Mom said it's not politically correct to say 'everypony' anymore. I'm Button Mash, and Mom got me the webcam and the program, so, welcome to my Let's Play channel! Wooo!" He paused to triple check and see if the video was recording. "Okay, good, it's going. I tried to make a video before but it didn't record! I might have hit the wrong button, I don't know. But it's recording now! And for today's video, we're gonna play... We're gonna play... hang on." Button Mash tapped the left button on his mouse a couple times. He was caught by surprise when the game started. "Oh! Well, there we go! We're gonna pla- I mean, let's play 'Story of the Blanks!' I heard it's really fun!" Button Mash skipped reflexively past the title screen and saw the camera pan over orange treetops, over green grass with a few darker green bushes here and there, coming to rest on a yellow pony with instructions in the lower lefthoof corner. "Woah, this game is 8-bit? No wonder it took so long to load! 'Use buttons to move?' Okay, I can do that!" The yellow pony moved across the screen. He moved to the next screen. The yellow pony came to an intersection and stopped. Button Mash squinted at the screen then. "She's got some red thing on her head? Is that a hat? Who's that coming up?" The new purple pony Button Mash was referring to stopped by his yellow pony character. When he saw the text box that came up when she began to speak, Mash gasped. "It's Ms. Sparkle! I didn't know she was in a game! I guess it makes sense, since she's really famous and stuff. Might be a tie-in or-" Button Mash started Ms. Sparkle's text asking the yellow pony what she was doing out on her own and then was really taken aback. "Apple Bloom!? Sweetie's friend is in a video game! Wow, that's too cool! Does she know about this? I've gotta ask her if she knows about this! Golly! But I've got to finish the video first." As surprised as he was, Button Mash had continued to skip through the opening conversation until he came to a part of Ms. Sparkle and Apple Bloom's conversation where Bloom was asking to come along into the Everfree Forest and Sparkle was only letting her come along if the little filly promised to stay close at all times. "I promise, Ms. Sparkle! So we're going to the Everfree Forest. Okay. I've never been there. Everypony says it's really scary." The sprites went up to the forest area, Apple Bloom just behind Ms. Sparkle but seemingly controlling her. As they were about to enter the orange opening to forest he remembered something. "Oh, Sweetie, if you see this tonight, could you see if I left my recharger for my joyboy over at your sister's? I'm pretty sure I did. Thanks!" What completely escaped Button Mash';s attention was that in the real Ponyvile, the real Apple Bloom and Twilight Sparkle found themselves compelled to leave their homes and converge on a path that lead into the Everfree Forest. They said the same things to each other that were said in the game even though many of the things were not true of them at all. Then they trotted into the Everfree Forest in the same manner as Button Mash moved them in the game despite their intense desire not to. Meanwhile the sprites in Button Mash's copy of Story of the Blanks proceeded through uneventful forest screens until they got to one where the two sprites needed to walk across an array of planks. "Is this an obstacle course? Okay, real gameplay's started everyone, let's do this!" Mash walked across one stretch of planks, then another, a third, a fourth, and he was done. He paused again. "Is... Is that it? Wow, kind of a lame level. Oh well." The pair of sprites went through a couple more uneventful levels before stopping outside a tree house. A grey pony seemed to be walking out of it. Mash read Ms. Sparkle's sprite box call her Zecora and he gasped again. "Zecora!? The grown ups used to say she's really bad! She must be the boss of this level!" Button Mash narrowed his eyes then at the sprite. "You're going down Zecora!" But then Zercora's text boxes showed her thanking the ponies, warning them not to stick around while rhyming. Then she went back inside, while Mr. Sparkle's sprite went off the screen. "Wait, that's it!? Lamest boss fight ever! I thought this game was supposed to be fun! Sorry, everypony, I'm sure it'll get better." "Butttttonnn!" his mother called from downstairs, "don't forget to take out the garbage !" "I WON'T, MOM!" Button answered. Then he turned to the cam. "That was my mother... but you probably knew that. Oh well, I can just cut that out later." He would forget to do that before uploading the video. The sprites went back through screens he'd already seen, and he growled in frustration. But then there was a change: a tree laid across the pathway. Ms. Sparkle's text box asked where it has come from. Then she floated it out of the way. "Hey, that was kinda cool." Mash said, trying to remain excited about the game for the audience if nothing else. Then the perspective in the game panned down to reveal a bunch of trees blocking the path. Ms. Sparkle's text box expressed frustration, though Mash was sure she was less frustrated than he was feeling. Then she moved to start floating the trees away, but didn't. "Is, is she gonna move those trees?" Mash asked. He moved Apple Bloom's sprite up to her. "What do you mean not now? Are you gonna move those trees or not?" Button Mash moved Apple Bloom's sprite back up the screen for want of something else to do. He saw a grey pony with a yellow tail. "Is that Ms. Hooves?" The new grey pony then went off into the woods. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter. I promised Ms. Sparkle that I was going to stay by her side at all times, and that's what I'm gonna do! Besides, it's probably just a trick that causes a 'game over' if I follow her." He moved Apple Bloom's sprite back down by Ms. Sparkle and waited. And waited. And waited. He perked up when he suddenly heard a noise from his computer, but then recognized it as being an instant message. He checked it. "Oh, it's Sweetie. She said she found my recharger. Knew it was over there!" He typed a quick message thanking her and then went back to the nothing that was happening in the game. He resumed waiting. After a minute, he lost patience. "Okay, this game is stupid! It's overrated and no fun and I'm not playing it anymore! Miss Sparkle and Apple Bloom should sue!" He tossed the controller away, then remembered his cam. He looked into it and smiled sheepishly. "So, uh, please like and subscribe for more great videos! See you next time! Bye! Now which button is it? That one? No, that one? Uh uh. Is it that o--" *** Out in the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom abruptly found themselves able to control their own movements when Button Mash turned off the game. A very frightened Apple Bloom pleaded for answers from her sister's friend while Twilight ran through her memory banks for answers. This did not seem to be Discord's doing. It was much too subtle, too small. She dismissed the possibility it was some bizarre mind game Trixie was playing as well for essentially the same reason. "Well. I'm not going to find out who did it by standing in the forest at night," Twilight muttered to herself. She put a hoof around the weeping Apple Bloom's shoulder. "C'mon. We're gonna find out who took us out into the forest and give 'em a piece of our minds!" After waiting a moment to let Bloom calm down, they trotted back out of the forest. Coming Soon: LET's PLAY: STORY OF THE BLANKS PT. 2
Let's Play "Story of the Blanks" Pt. 2Button Mash's Let's Play Channel LET'S PLAY: STORY OF THE BLANKS Pt. 2 Note: This story obviously contains Story of the Blanks spoilers. "Alright, alright! I'll pay the other half of the game! I've heard all of you making fun of me for getting stuck halfway through! You're all jerks!" On that less-than-ingratiating note began Button Mash's second video for his Let's Play channel. He'd been too discouraged by the bad traffic at first to continue making videos. When his video suddenly became somewhat popular, he saw that it was because fillies and foals were making fun of him for playing the game badly and was too embarrassed for two weeks to follow it up. Now three weeks after he posted his first video he was going to try and make things right as best he could. He skipped impatiently through the opening dialogue even faster than he had the first time. It didn't occur to him to just cut that part out of the video. But that was to be expected considering he was unaware that the webcam footage of him still wasn't appearing in the video. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Button said in response to all the Apple Bloom and Twilight Sparkle's text. He really began to lose it halfway through the trek to Zecora's house in the forest. "COME ON!" He yelled at the game. He seemed to inch along to the part of the path where the trees had fallen. Finally, he saw the sprite for the pony he had thought was Mrs. Hooves ran into the forest. " Okay, Snips told me I'm supposed to follow her here." Button Mash said. "So if it's an instant game over, he's a jerk!" Button had Apple Bloom's sprite follow the gray sprite into the forest. He was a bit taken aback when he saw the new screen. "Woah, this place looks really dark," Button observed, "I really hope something doesn't just show up and kill Apple Bloom." Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom had naturally told everyone about their weird involuntary journey to the the Everfree Forest, although word hadn't gotten to Button Mash as he was hardly the most social of ponies. If Button Mash had waited only one week or maybe two, then the ponies would have been on the alert that something strange could happen to Apple Bloom and Twilight at any time. They would have been followed as the game took control of the two pony's movements and had them converge on a path in Ponyville that led to the Everfree Forest. But as it was, by three weeks their guard was down, and the Twilight and Apple Bloom found themselves moving about under the game's control without anyone catching on but the two of them. Once again Twilight found herself telling Apple Bloom she was going to the Everfree Forest and Apple Bloom was begged to go along without wanting to. They spoke quickly as Button Mash was skipping through the dialogue as he made his video. Their trek through the forest was practically spastic, impatient as Button Mash was. When they arrived at Zecora's house, she once more came out and said the game dialogue to them and then went back inside. The pair then went down the same path where weeks ago they'd encountered the fallen trees. Apple Bloom once more turned and saw the gray mare enter the forest, and this time, she followed. When she did so, the game loosed its control on Twilight Sparkle. It had no use for her for several levels. "Sweet Celestia, that was awful." Twilight said as she felt herself regain control of her muscles and ability to speak. She turned from the barricade of logs to where it roughly sounded like Apple Bloom had entered the forest. "Apple Bloom! Bloom, where are you?" In her panic, despite the multitude of dangers the Everfree Forest offered at night, Twilight ran into the dense foliage. There was not a sign of the filly anywhere to be seen. Suddenly, a wild cockatrice appeared! It was in front of her! It screeched and it's eyes glowed red, unleashing it's pernicious petrifaction powers! "There's no time for that!" Twilight yelled as she clapped her hooves down on its shoulders, catching it off guard and dimming its eyes. "Look. did you see a filly come through here: Yellow with red hair and a bow?" It shook its head and before it had its wits about it, Twilight was tearing off in another direction after the missing filly. "I hate this level, this forest is too dark and creepy." Button Mash commented. When Button Mash found himself in a village level, he perked up. "Oh, that's better! Hey, there's a character!" Button Mash went to the closest character. "Sunny Town? Must be a nice place. What's going on over at those tables?" "Uh, nothing, I guess. That's dumb. Tables should have things on them. Hey, another character!" "What's she talking abo- wait, does she have a crush? Gross." Not wanting to stick around the icky mare with a crush, Button Mash hurried over to the next visible character, although the novelty was beginning to wear off. "What's this colt's problem?" "Oh no, he's the one she's crushing on?! Ugh. Wait, I'm not gonna-" "A fetch quest! You stupid game!" Apple Bloom would have been paralyzed with fear if she still had control over her muscles. This was so much worse than when she'd had the cutie pox. She'd been scared ever since some mysterious magic took control of her movements, horrified when she left Mrs. Sparkle for the darkness of the forest, but this was the worst. The unnatural sunlight was unlike anything she'd ever seen before. It was sickly and wrong. It felt as if a pestilential sun provided that light and heat. She couldn't speak as Button Mash unknowingly guided her through the level. She completed the fetch quest without even noticing what was happening. All could think about was how the voices of the ponies she was encountering in the village. To Button Mash it was only more of the same text, but to her their voices sounded hollow and wrong. They sounded like a machine making voices, as if that magic music machine she'd once heard Vinyl Scratch use when she visited Ponyville was being used to make voices. Apple Bloom hated that sound more than the shriek of a cockatrice, and could do nothing but hope it would all soon be over. Button Mash finished the fetch quest without incident. Then he completed a block pushing puzzle after only four restarts. He avoided talking to any other ponies out of concern they'd send him on another fetch quest as he passed through the village. "They always have the important house somewhere away from all the others." Button Mash said to the webcam to explain why he was just walking through a village level without checking any of the houses. When Apple Bloom was at the last house, Button Mash figured the well must have been important or else the gamemaker wouldn't have bothered to include it, not like that foolishness with the tables. He retrieved the item. And went into the cottage. It was almost empty except for a table, which Button Mash found was once again non-interactive. "I already said tables should have things on them, you dumb game! So now what? There's got to be something somewhere in here..." Button Mash pushed Apple Bloom's icon against the walls until she reached the fireplace. "Oh yeah, the fireplace. Like I'm just supposed to know that! Dumb game..." Back out in the Village in Everfree Forest and yet not at all in Everfree Forest, Apple Bloom saw the contents of the fireplace. It was a filly skeleton with red bones in the black coal dust. Button Mash hadn't let her talk to the mysterious ponies outside that might have given her insight into what was happening, but that hardly mattered as far as her fear went. For the first time, the game's emotions reflected her own, although inadequately. "No no no no!" Apple Bloom yelled. The unnatural light gave way to darkness. Pitch darkness, save for a shaft of infernal red light that poured from. The aired filled with a ghastly noise. It sounded like the shuffling approach of some horrible being coming through a deafeningly loud but heavily distorted speaker. Apple Bloom wished stronger than she'd ever wished for anything in her life that the whatever controlled her movement would take her out of that cottage. "Is that a skeleton!? Ah!" When the screen went black around Apple Bloom except for a shaft of red light, Button Mash didn't take the situation any better than the real Apple Bloom did hers. "AAAAAAUUUGGGHH!" He shrieked. In fact he dropped the controller and backed away into the corner. If his webcam had been recording footage of him, he would have been a target of every bully at school the next day for how wimpy he seemed. He waited for the gave's weird sound to end, hoping it would be either a game over or a cut scene which would end quickly. When it became clear that the sound was looping, he crawled back to the screen. He saw that Apple Bloom was still standing there, seemingly okay, with only one thing to do. "I don't like scary games! They're... they're too scary!" Mash whined as he controlled Apple Bloom back through the level to the village. When he reached it and saw what a black, decayed ruin it was, he became so scared the blades on his beanie spun like a helicopter. "IT WAS A GHOST TOWN ALL ALONG!" Mash screamed. He tried to dash through it. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Mash responded. He made little progress before the next cut scene began. "IT'S A ZOMBIE! IT PROBABLY WANTS TO EAT MY BRAIN" Mash yelled. He'd completely forgotten about doing game commentary or anything and just wanted to get out of that village. "Button!" came the voice of Button's mother through the door, "are you playing a scary game before bed time!?" "N-n-no, Mom!" Button answered, his fear of the video game completely overwhelmed by his fear of his mom's disapproval. "Keep it down anyway: Your father has a big day at the glue factory tomorrow and needs his rest." Button's mother went back downstairs after that, allowing him to return to being scared of the game. Out in the undead village of Sunny Town, Apple Bloom was standing hooves away from a black pony skeleton with red light emitting from its eye sockets. It was speaking in a dead digital language to her, not that Apple Bloom would have listened anyway. While she couldn't so much as twitch her nose unless the game wanted her to, her spirit inside her body was desperately trying to leave her body through her backside and sprint off to anywhere these ghosts were not. She was not successful enough at this. "I don't care what you have to say!" Mash whispered loudly as he skipped through the dialogue, "Get me out of here!" Knowing Apple Bloom as well as he did by proxy through Sweetie Belle, he knew she'd never stand a chance in a fight against any zombie tougher than a dandelion and steered her out of the village. He made a hushed squeak when he saw another zombie coming for him, skipping through its dialogue. "Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeon!" Mash said as he just barely pushed the rock out of the way in time to escape. At least it felt like it was just barely in time. His legs began to spasm against the floor and his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest. On the next screen, he ran into another cut scene where a zombie had something to say to him. He skipped through the dialogue without reading a word. "I already said I don't care! You zombies talk each other to death!? I just want out!" On the next screen, he barely kept from shrieking as a mass of zombies came out of the red ground to pursue him. "Sorry game, I didn't mean that!" Button steered her as best he could through seemingly endless ranks of zombies springing up from the ground. It was fortunate that he'd set the game on easy mode though he'd never admit that he'd done so while being recorded. "When is this gonna end?!" Button whimpered as he went through the last screen with zombies on it. When he reached a screen with black ground, he squeaked again. "Now I can't see the path! Are there more?" Cautiously he guided the filly sprite through the black levels, but didn't encounter anything but a trail of red glowing spots on the ground. He was soon upon a familiar figure. "Mrs. Hooves is gonna save me? I am so dead!" But then he reached the sprite. "Ruby? Who's Ruby? That must be Mrs. Hooves's middle name." Still a dialogue skipper, Button didn't read any of the dialogue for the next scene. Red zombies appeared around them suddenly and began to close in. "Save me, Mrs. Hooves! You're a pegasus! HEEEEELLLPP!" A white halo appeared on the corner of the screen which then drifted to over the two pony sprites as the zombies were almost upon them. "What's that!?!" Button asked as the screen flashed white, and then he was on a new screen. It certainly looked less scary than the previous levels. Then a familiar figure appeared. "Yay, Mrs. Sparkle! Now she's a real hero! That must have been her magical circle thing!" Button's happiness that Twilight Sparkle was there didn't keep him from skipping through the dialogue. He cheered immediately after when he saw Apple Bloom and Twilight leave the forest. "Yaaaay! I won! I beat the game!" He was too busy cheering to pay attention to the game until he was back at the title screen. He looked into the webcam. "So, that was a weird game. It was really hard, too! It could have been more fun and I would have liked it if it was less scary. So please like and and subscribe for more videos! Bye everypony!" Button Mash turned the game off. Out in the Everfree Forest, a place called Sunny Town and those who dwelt in it once more winked out of existence. A pony and filly on the outskirts of that forest found themselves in control of their bodies once again, and as soon as they did, Apple Bloom convulsed from the many muscle cramps and shrieked in panic. She was naturally an order of magnitude worse than she had been three weeks earlier, so much so that Twilight became both afraid for her and afraid of coming near her. That fear doubled when Apple Bloom began flailing about and bucking at random. She looked like she'd practically gone feral. "Apple Bloom, calm down! It's okay now! Calm. Down." Twilight yelled, which apparently calmed Apple Bloom enough to speak coherently instead of shrieking. "Et was terrible! There was a village, an' it was fulla ghosts and zombies!" Even to someone as acquainted with monsters and the unpredictability of the Everfree Forest as Twilight, that sounded like Apple Bloom's imagination running away from her. "You're not making sense, calm down." Twilight said as reassuringly as she could. "They were all talkin' in creepy voices, et was bright, a skeleton in a fireplace! And there was Mrs. Hooves! I don't..." Apple Bloom plomped awkwardly down on her haunches, almost fell over, and began just sobbing. Twilight hesitated a moment, unsure if she might start trembling herself and manage to make it worse, but then she took a few steps over to hug Apple Bloom. "Hey, hey. We'll get to the bottom of this. It'll be alright." Apple Bloom glared her angriest up at the unicorn in response. "HOW DO YA KNOW!? ET GOT YA'LL TOO! ET'S MAGIC IS STRONGER THAN YOURS! YA DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" Twilight stopped dead at that. "Knowing" was one of her deepest passions, after all. She thought for a moment. Apple Bloom's expression faltered, her clearly desperate for an answer beneath the need to have lashed out. Twilight sighed. "I don't know. But it doesn't hurt me to hope." Apple Bloom sniffed deeply, and offered her forelegs to Twilight, wanting a hug. Twilight obliged, and then the pair went to their homes.
Let's Play "Super Filly Adventure"Button Mash's Let's Play Channel LET'S PLAY: Super Filly Adventure Note: This story obviously contains Super Filly Adventure spoilers. "Hi! Welcome to Button Mash's Let's Play Channel!" Button Mash yelled. "For today's video, a bunch of ponies asked that I play 'Super Filly Adventure,' so here we go!" Button Mash's mood regarding his channel and the bunch of ironic followers he had attracted improved significantly after the ad revenue rolled in. What hadn't improved was his ability to incorporate his webcam footage into his videos, so his videos continued to only contain gameplay. The game's title screen came up. "Yeah! Super Filly Adventure by Steel Udder Productions! They make all the best games like... uh, Super Filly Adventure! Yeah, okay, I shoulda done my homework. Again. Well, moving on." The screen changed to an image of what looked like Ponyville where a yellow filly with a green mane and tail walked onscreen. "So that's me? Huh. She's pretty." "Pinkie Pie? I know her! She's the partyingest pink pony possible!" Button Mash observed. Since it was Pinkie Pie, he decided to actually read what she had say. "My character is named Jade? She's got a good name, like Sweetie Belle." "A party for me! Jade's so cool!" http://i.imgur.com/zQfuRwf.png "Okay, Jade, we're gonna give out those invites like a champ!" Two ponies appeared on screen from seemingly nowhere, and he went to talk to them. "It's Mrs. Sparkle and Mrs. Hooves again. They must be getting really rich from all the games they're in." "Great, off to a good start." Mrs. Hooves was not on his list of ponies to invite, so he went to the next screen. There was a sprite of Fluttershy. He gave her the invitation. "We're totally beating this game, Jade!" Mash yelled with a hoof pump. As soon as Button Mash's character Jade moved from the screen the sprites of them been standing in, Twilight Sparkle and Derpy Hooves became free to move. "It's that strange magic that took over Apple Bloom and me last week! It controlled how we moved and spoke!" Sparkle said. "Oh, right." Derpy replied, wanting to cover the fact she hadn't heard about that. She would have questioned how she'd teleported to where she was currently standing in Ponyville but she was so used to not really knowing where she was it was practically second nature. "And this time, it's manifested some abomination in roughly the shape of a filly which speaks in a strange electronic voice!" Twilight added. "I guess Apple Bloom might not have been imagining that village out in the forest." "Uh, yeah." Derpy offered. Pinkie Pie galloped up to Twilight then, her ability to move having recently freed up as well. "Twilight, I think that magic thing that got you and Apple Bloom is back and- EEEEEEK!" Pinkie was taken over by the game's magic and compelled to go to gallop to Sugarcube Corner since Jade's sprite was going in that direction and the game wanted to make sure Pinkie was present if Jade walked into the bakery. "Right, Pinkie, but this time, things are going to go differently." The newly freed Fluttershy came flapping up to Twilight then. "Twilight, there's a strange creature trotting through Ponyville! It's like a yellow filly, but it's... off, and it's voice is strange. It doesn't even sound like a voice! And it made me stand in place until I talked to it" With a statement like that coming from a pony as compassionate as Fluttershy, it was clear that Jade was truly an unsettling presence in pony. "And we're going to do something about it! Tell the other keepers that can still move to come with me to the Ponyville Library! I've got an idea for how to deal with it!" Twilight and Derpy began galloping to the Ponyville Library while Fluttershy went off in the opposite direction to spread the word. Twilight turned her head to Derpy as they galloped. "Uh, Derpy, you don't need to come if you don't-" "Don't worry, Rarity! I'm not scared!" Derpy replied with a beam. Twilight sighed. Button Mash had stopped by the Carousel Boutique to give Rarity an invitation and was now talking to Rainbow Dash. "Heh heh, whoever made this game sure knows these ponies!" Button Mash said. Mash wanted to keep talking to Dash even after Dash got her invitation. In the course of the conversation, Dash felt compelled to demonstrate her ability to make it rain, and so a cloud appeared out of nowhere for Dash to bounce on. "Hehehe, she's so much fun!" Button sighed, staring at the yellow sprite with her green mane. "I like you, Jade." Button sent Jade to the left, which was apparently where Sweet Apple Acres was in the game with Applejack waiting. The pair had a little chat, and eventually Applejack asked for some help with baking muffins. "Oh man, I've got to cook muffins now? I guess you can't have a party without muffins, right Jade?" The pair entered the kitchen and went through a little minigame wherein he was asked to choose the right ingredients to add to the mix. "Wow, baking is even easier than Mom makes it look." Applejack gave Jade a muffin. "Okay, I bet this muffin is how you regenerate health." Button Mash said as he sent Jade off to the right, forgetting that he'd already invited everyone on his list of objectives. He saw Zecora on the edge of the Everfree Forest. "Hey, it's Zecora. This time I know she's not going to be the final boss." Button still felt like trotting up and talking to her. "Oh yeah, if it's like the last game, that's definitely true! Thanks!" Twilight Sparkle with considerable help from Spike and her friends had set up all the magical monitoring equipment she'd once used to test Pinkie's "pinkie sense" with added satellite dishes and broadcasting antennae in the Ponyville Library. She might not have included quite so many hamsters on wheels, attached so many racing stripes, sprinkled quite so much glitter, and probably there would have been fewer ribbons if she'd worked without Pinkie and Rarity, but the machine was in good working order. "Alright, I think we're ready to begin scanning for the source of this magic." Twilight told Rarity, Fluttershy, Derpy, and Spike, the only ones available since Dash and Pinkie were still trapped in and around Sugarcube Corner. "Whatever this magic is, it's really scary." Fluttershy said. "Obnoxious too." Rarity added. "It's as if it knows all of us in Ponyville, but reduced us to our simplest interests and most obvious personality traits in what we have to say! I'm not just a pretty face with a passion for fashion!" Twilight activated the machine and scanned the read out carefully. "I'm not getting any useful findings." Twilight said. Her horn went aglow and she adjusted the scan frequency. She didn't want to offend Fluttershy and thus didn't mention that her first scan was looking for evidence Discord was the culprit, but his magic was actually lower than usual, as if he was taking a nap somewhere. She saw some spikes in the data after she adjusted the frequency. "Ah ha! I've found something!" "Oh my, can you lock onto the source?" Fluttershy asked. "Certainly, and I think I've already found it!" Twilight adjusted various settings on the equipment. "Okay, wow, it's a lot closer than I would have thought! In fact it's downstairs in... Spike, go turn off the microwave." "Ooooh, sorry." Spike sheepishly said as he went to do so. Once that was done, the signal died. "Shoot! Well, let's adjust the scan." Twilight made another adjustment and this time, the flow of data was nearly constantly spiking. The amount of magic would be like if Discord and Luna cooperated to cast a spell on all of Ponyville, such was its power. "Holy udders! I've found it this time! Now let me see if I can- WOAH!" Twilight and her friends found their bodies abruptly taken over and they began galloping and flying to Sugarcube Corner. The yellow blocky filly-shaped thing was on its way there, after all, and the game had planned a party for it. "Yay! Time for a party!" Button Mash cried when he brought Jade into the Sugacube Corner and Pinkie announced it was party time. He was delighted at the sight of all the mares at his party, since he had been told a lot of mares being at a party was a good thing. Then Pinkie said she had a present for Jade. "Jade's getting a warrior's outfit? Okay. Wish we had an adventure to go on where-" There was the sound of a dragon's roar in the game. "Woah, that dragon sounded big and mean enough to burn down Ponyville!" "That's what I said, Mrs. Rarity!" Jade volunteered to put a stop to the dragon's reign of terror, and was a moment later outside wearing her new present. "Oh wow! Jade looks so cool!" Button Mash skipped through the new dialogue until he reached what looked like a combat level where Jade would be fighting a dragon. "Okay, Jade, time to... Buck this dragon's ownage!" Thirty seconds later, this happened: "Oops. Sorry, Jade." Once the yellow and green pixelated monster had flown away, the Keepers of the Elements of Harmony made for Ponyville Library again. "What a lame party that was!" Pinkie griped as she bounced along. "Everypony just standing around while I give the new pony a present!? BORRRRRING!" "At least it seems to be keeping that dragon from attacking Ponyville." Fluttershy offered as she looked up at the battle in the sky. "Oh dear! Looks like it just die- oh wait, it's back and shooting magic at the dragon again." "I don't know why we're not going up there and showing that dragon who's boss!" Dash complained. "It barely looks bigger than Princess Celestia!" "Dash, with a mind-controlling, teleporting magic that effects us all on the lose, a small dragon is the least of our problems!" Twilight said as the ponies entered the library. "Maybe, we could talk it out of attacking Ponyville instead." Fluttershy offered. "You can't talk a magical force that controls what you say into or out of things!" Twilight said as she returned to her place at the machine before they'd all gone to Sugarcube Corner. She adjusted the settings and found the traces of magic again. "Okay, everypony, we've got to hurry before the magic takes us over again! We need to convert this machine into a magical disruptor!" "I've never heard of a magic disruptor." Rarity said in befuddlement. "Of course not! That's because we're inventing it now!" Twilight began giving out orders like a princess and her friends scrambled to make the necessary changes. It was fortunate for the ponies in the library that the portion of the game where Button fought the dragon was so hard. Up in his room, Button fought the dragon five times before he first came even halfway close to winning. But even after nine times, his resolve didn't lessen at all. He wasn't about to let Jade be denied her moment of glory. On the tenth time, he finally won the fight. "Yes, we totally beat the dragon! Jade, we rock!" "Okay, I'm going to attempt to send the jamming spell!" Twilight yelled to her friends. With a glow of her horn, she sent a magic-scrambling pulse of energy through Ponyville. The result fell far short of her estimations but she might not have been disappointed. "What do you see?" "Looks like the little yellow filly-like thang beat the dragon. The dragon disappeared and now the filly thang is flyin' down to Everfree Forest fer some reason." Applejack answered. "It would make sense if it came from the Everfree Forest. Okay, I'm going to keep monitoring the magic. keep an eye on the forest in case something strange comes out of it." Up in his room, Button was surprised at the screen that came up after her beat the dragon. "Static? I've never had static on my computer." "Why are we out in the forest?" "That's what I just asked." "Don't worry! I'll get you out of this somehow!" Button's words weren't even reassuring to himself. "Please don't cry, Jade." He begged meekly. Barely had Button Mash finished saying that when he walked onto the next screen. It much darker than any previous level of the game, but he had no trouble seeing a dark pony shape coming for Jade's Sprite. He tried to steer Jade off the screen, but there was no escape. This felt very different from the earlier battle with the dragon. This didn't seem like something where Jade would just start over if she lost. This portion of the game was unbeatable. This was... wrong. "No, no! Don't you dare hurt her! Stop it!" There was nowhere for Button to control Jade to go and the dark sprite was soon touching hers. Button leapt up to turn the game off but did not do so fast enough to avoid seeing this screen. "MOMMMMM!" Button Mash yelled as he dropped the control and galloped from the room. "THE GAME KILLED JADE! SHE WAS LIKE MY BEST FRIEND AND IT KILLED HER!" Just as with his previous video, the instant Button turned off the game, all the beings generated by the game in Ponyville vanished and every real pony resumed control of their bodies. "Oh, Button." Button's Mom consoled after he had galloped up and hugged her, "There, there." She could afford to be pleasant and comforting this time because he was playing a horror game at a much more reasonable hour. Anyway, it was nice that he clearly wasn't becoming desensitized to violence.
