"He's over by the water tower!" Luna yelled into her mic. "Get him!" She ran into a building, trying to flank him. "He's the only guy left. We take him out and we win the game." She aimed down her sights, ready in case he tried to jump out at her.
"You gotta be-" she heard her teammate say as he hit a claymore, taking him out of the game.
"Always left to finish the dirty work." she said, annoyed. She listened for her enemies footsteps as she moved silently through the building's rafters. She looked to her right and saw the hint of a barrel. Then heard a shot as the screen showed the scoreboard.
"Are you serious!?" Luna exclaimed, staring at their 4-3 loss. "Stupid camper!"
"Luna, are you still playing that game?" Celestia asked.
"Yes, sister. You know we've been trying to get all the achievements. This game would've left us with only five to complete." she said, taking her headphones off and rubbing her eyes.
"You need a break from this." her sister said.
"Not until we finish our goal."
"Take a break with a different game. I found one that I've been playing for a good while now." Celestia said. "It's very fun and not as stress inducing as this first person shooter."
"What kind of game sister? You have no clue what quality gaming is." Luna said, chuckling.
Celestia smiled. "Trust me, you'll enjoy this one." she said and walked out of the room.
Luna went back to her game and sat in the lobby, waiting for the next session to start. There's no way she could have a game that's addicting. She doesn't even know what a good game is even when I threw it at her face. she thought. The idea of a new game piqued her interest though. "Might as well give it a go." she said, leaving the lobby and turning her console off.
She walked out of her gaming room and travelled down the corridor to her sister's chambers. She opened the door to her sister's room. She was sitting on her bed taking a sip from her cup. "I knew you couldn't resist a new game." Celestia said smiling.
"No, that isn't the case. We just wanted to know how bad the game was compared to our highly rated games." Luna said, not wanting to admit to her sister's accusation.
"Well, not all good games have to be highly rated to be good."
"Look, can we see this new game?" Luna said, walking to her sisters computer.
"It's called cookie clicker. All you do is click on the giant cookie on the left side of the screen. The more cookies you earn, the more stuff you can buy to gain more cookies." Celestia explained.
"Wait...you're telling me that a game designed for clicking a cookie, can be more fun than a 5/5 rated game?" Luna asked, skeptically.
"Just trust me. Give it a go." she said, nodding towards the monitor.
Luna rolled her eyes. What harm could it bring? she thought. She placed her hoof onto the mouse and clicked on the cookie. A white '+1' text popped up, and the game began.
Six Days Later...
Celestia yawned as she walked through Canterlot castle. She'd had a long day with her royal duties and it was time for her sister to take over. She walked to Luna's gaming room, knowing that she would be there. However when she walked in, the tv was off. It looked like she hadn't been here for a few days. That's weird. Usually she spends some time in here before she goes to her duties as Princess of the Night. she thought. She closed the door and went to her sister's chambers. "She probably just slept in." she said to herself.
She walked to Luna's room and nodded at the guards. "Hello, Rouche. Is Luna in there?"
"Yes, your highness. She hasn't left for the past 48 hours." he said.
"What?" Celestia asked, shocked.
"Yes ma'am. I don't think she's gotten much sleep either." he said.
"Any idea why?"
"None."
"Okay. Well I'll go in and see what's up. Thank you." she said smiling to the guard. She walked inside and found that the room was dark and that the blinds were closed. There was a a light coming from the desk and a silhouette sitting in front of a computer screen. "Luna? What in Equestria are you doing? The guards say that you haven't left for 48 hours."
"Yeah...been clicking cookies..." Luna replied.
"What?" Celestia asked confused.
"Cookie clicker. I'm about 3 million away from an anti-matter condenser." Luna said dryly as she clicked the mouse.
"A what?"
"Get's me lots of cookies."
"Okay, can you please use complete sentences?" Celestia asked. "Is this what you've been doing?"
"Yep." Luna replied quietly.
Celestia took some steps up to her. "So...uh...how many cookies do you have right now?"
"263,189,303,586,371,284." she replied cooly. "And growing."
Celestia let out a whistle. That's quiet a number for simply two days. "Mind if, uh...I take over for you while you handle your duty over the night?"
"It's already done." Luna said.
"There's more to your duties than raising the moon." Celestia said quietly.
"I've got it covered."
"Gold cookie, click it!" Celestia exclaimed.
"I got it." Luna said, clicking on it.
"Nice. You got an extra six million cookies." Celestia said taking a seat next to her sister.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Luna asked.
"Yeah, I'll be going soon. I just want to see what you buy to get so many cookies so fast." she replied.
The Next Morning...
Twilight ran through the castle looking for the Princess'. They brought me here after my coronation so I could see the behind the scenes of what goes on. Luna didn't show up where she said she would and now Celestia isn't here. I hope nothing bad happened. she thought as she ran to her mentors chambers. When she arrived, nopony was there, not even her guards. "This can't be good." she said aloud. She ran out and made her way to Luna's room. When she came upon the door slightly ajar and no guards to be found, she feared the worse.
She slowly opened the door, ready to jump on anypony who wasn't supposed to be here. But what she found was a dark room with a bunch of shadows staring at a bright light. "What in the world?" she said as she cast a spell to enlighten the room.
There were numerous groans and screams of surprise as the ponies in the room covered their eyes. "Someone turn off the light!!" Luna exclaimed. "Celestia, did you raise the sun in my room!?"
"This wasn't me!" she exclaimed.
"It was me! What are you all doing here?" she exclaimed as she took in all the guards that surrounded the Princess' at a computer screen.
"We're clicking cookies! Go away!" Luna shouted.
"Celestia, you need to raise the sun! You're five minutes late!" she said.
"It's only five minutes, Twilight." Celestia said.
"Only five minutes? Don't you realize the type of danger they could bring? Someone could think that you're not fit to rule and that they can attack! If you don't show that you are able to rule, you could get overthrown!" Twilight said, worryingly.
"Twilight, you're overreacting." Celestia said. She cast her spell, causing the sun to rise. "There. We won't be overrun now."
"What were you all doing that caused you to forget your roles?" Twilight asked.
"Clicking cookies." everyone in the room said.
"But...how does-" she started saying, but was interrupted by Luna.
"Come over here and be enlightened by gaming mastery."
Twilight walked over to them, looking over the guard's shoulders. "Luna, you know I think those things destroy your brain cells."
"Just give it a shot." she said, resetting the game.
Twilight sighed and sat down at the computer desk. "So what do I have to do?"
"Click the big cookie. Each time you do, you get extra cookies which allow you to buy certain things that can give you more cookies." Luna explained.
"Sounds dumb." Twilight replied.
Luna gave a gasp of exasperation. "This is not dumb! It's the pinnacle game of this generation!" she exclaimed.
"I doubt it." she said, clicking the first cookie. She clicked it again. "So...what? I just click this thing and get Grandmas?"
"Yeah. But you need to try to get up to the more expensive ones." Celestia said.
"I've figured out the fastest way to get cookies." Luna bragged.
"How?" Twilgiht asked, clicking it again.
"Simply buy as many Grandmas as you can until you get enough cookies to buy a factory and so on and so forth.
Twilight did some quick calculations in her head and figured that Luna was actually wrong. "Wouldn't it be faster to get a few Grandmas and then get a ten farms, then ten factories, and then as many Grandmas? That way you get a large amount of cookies per second."
"What? No way." Luna said.
"No it'll actually work. The longest part of it will be getting the factories." Twilight said, clicking the cookie a few more times.
"Prove it." Luna said.
"Only until I get a nice steady stream of cookies. Then I'm leaving." Twilight said.
Several Hours Later...
"If I get another time machine, I'll have roughly 185,783,192,003 cookies being made per second. If my calculations are correct, I'll be able to buy my 100th anti-matter condenser in just a few minutes. That is if I can avoid getting any ruined surprises from those red cookies." Twilight said.
"I told you not to buy the Elder's Wrath upgrade. You mainly get ruined cookies, not lucky ones." Celestia said.
"There's one. The last few have been ruins, so hopefully by probability, this will be a multiplier cookie." Twilight said, clicking on it. She groaned as she was awarded with a halving cookie. "So with cookie production cut in half, I'll half to pick up my clicking speed." she said as she started to click the cookie furiously.
"What's going on here?" Shining Armor asked as he walked into the room. "What the?"
"Go away. Clicking cookies." his sister said.
"Twily? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be back in Ponyville by now?" he asked.
"She's busy clicking cookies." Celestia said.
"Oh no, you didn't show her that ridiculous online game did you?" he asked, face hoofing.
"No, I showed it to Luna who then showed it to Twilight." Celestia said, switching the blame over to her sister.
"It's a good game!" Luna shouted, trying to defend her reasons.
"I don't care. How long have you all been at this?" he asked.
"Luna played for almost three days. Twilight has only been at it for a few hours." Celestia said.
"Alright, well I'm ending it here. Everyone out." he ordered. The guards groaned. "I know, I know, you all want to continue watching this ridiculous game, but you all have jobs that need to be done. Especially you." he said, pointing to Celestia.
The guards walked out of the room, leaving only the Princess' and Shining Armor. "They gone?" Luna asked.
Shining put his ear to the door, listening to the steps going farther and farther down. "Yep." he said. He walked over to the desk and sat down next to his sister. "What are you waiting for? Start clicking!!"
