Champions of Mareth 2: Mare Harder

"Vrooooom! Whoooosh! Bang bang bang bang! Teeheehee" I giggle as I weave my ship through the enemy lines, blowing up aliens left and right as I do all sorts of crazy tricks.

"Do a barrel roll!" the AI hollers over the intercom.

"I already did twelve!" I reply back. "Why don't you try a somersault?"

They don't respond to that, but a moment later one of the other characters cries out. "Oh no, Poppy's crashed!"

"Whoops! Guess he couldn't handle what he was dishing out," I chuckle.

Just then, my whole body twitches, making me bank the ship suddenly to the right. There's no time to correct myself, as a huge wall brings itself up to meet the nose of my aircraft. I'm engulfed in a huge explosion, and I die.

GAME OVER

"Awww man," I whine, pulling the headset off. "My Pinkie sense tolb me I wab goig to crash, and thab whad made me crash. Thab bo unbair!"

I pause, confused, and reach up to feel my face.

"Oh, hey Gubby!" With a little force, I manage to pull Gummy off of my nose, and give him a big grin. "Hehe, you're right, I guess it is pretty funny after all."

We share a giggle as I sit up off the bed, and carry him over to his feeding bowl. It's run pretty low, so I fish into the cupboard for the box of SAFTIMOPHs (Soya-Alligator-Food-That-Isn't-Made-Of-People-Honest), and tip out a generous helping for him. He looks happy, and starts slowly chewing on the soft pellets.

Wowee, either Gummy's become a faster eater, or I've been playing way longer than I thought. I fetch my watch from the table, and am shocked to see it's now fun o'clock. It was only ten past party when I started, I've lost most of the day!

I need to be more careful. Those games are addictive. If I'm not careful, I could become one of those people who just sit inside playing them all day, and then all my friends might think I'm dead, and they'll hold a funeral for me, and it'll be really sad, and when I go to cheer them up they'll think I'm a zombie and run away from me and I'll be left without ANY FRIENDS AT ALL!

No! I won't let that happen! I'm going to see my friends right now, before the funeral team can prepare the funeral, and I will tell them that I am not dead!

"Twilight!" I cry, bursting into her bedroom, "Rainbow's dead!"

"What?!" Twilight exclaims, looking up from her book.

"Or maybe she's just missing, I don't know, but either way she's gone, and we'll never see here agai-ai-ain!" I finish, bursting into tears.

"Pinkie, slow down," Twilight says, running over and putting her arm around me. "Please, tell me what happened."

"Well," I sniff, "I went over over to see Rainbow, to see if she wanted to play, but when I got there, her house was gone! All that was left was a few tufts of cloud. The rest of it must've floated off into space, or got crushed by a meteor, or-"

"Or is right outside as we speak," Spike interrupted, walking into the room and putting down a feather duster.

"Huh?" Twilight and I say in unison, giving him a confused glance.

"What, you didn't notice either Twilight? About an hour after she left here, she came back, and brought her whole house with her. Look, she even threw down a rope." Spike pushed open the doors to the balcony, and sure enough, there was a rope dangling down from the sky, hovering about a foot off the woodwork.

I walk outside and look up, and sure enough, there's Rainbow's familiar cloud house, sitting a comfortable few feet above the tree.

"Oh. Well why's she there?"

"I'm not sure," Twilight says, following me outside, "but it probably has something to do with her visit earlier this afternoon."

"It was so weird!" Spike cuts in. "Rainbow had lost her wings, and her hair was all red. Apparently this NGear game she'd been playing had done it to her. Luckily, Twilight managed to change her back."

"Ooh, Rainbow has an NGear too?" I ask excitedly. Maybe that means there's a way I can combine playing video games and socialising, rather that having to choose between them.

"I'm uh, gonna go see how she's doing," I tell the others, as I grab hold of the rope and begin to gradually climb my way up it.

"Tell her to be careful with that game," Twilight calls up after me. "We may have only scratched the surface of what it can do."

"Ding dong!" I call, knocking on the door. I wait a while, but there's no answer.

Maybe she's playing with her NGear, I realise. If so, she wouldn't hear me knocking. I give the door handle a try, and finding that it's not locked, I push the door open and step inside.

"Rainbow, you home?" I call again, looking around. Well, she's not in her living room at least. I trot up the stairs, and open the door leading into her bedroom. "Rainb- oh!"

Lying on Rainbow's bed is an unfamiliar woman. Her face is obscured by the NeuronGear helmet she's wearing, but I can see a lock of red hair peeking out from under it. She's dressed in nothing but her trousers, leaving her ample DD-cup breasts exposed, her nipples raised and stiff.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about her, however, is that as I'm watching, her skin colour transforms from lightly tanned to dark green!

Could this be what Twilight was talking about, a game that changes how you look? In which case... is that Rainbow?!

Walking over to the bed, I reach forward, and give her new boobs a playful squeeze. So firm! Whatever she's doing in the game must either be really exciting her, or be really cold.

I consider my options. I could go and find someone awake to play with... but then Rainbow would be left out, and given enough time, SHE could become one of those shut-aways. No, I should stay and keep her company. But I can't really sit and do nothing, so...

Pulling my NGear out of my bag, I plug it in to the socket on the wall, and hit the power button. I see Rainbow's disk drive sitting unplugged on her desk, so I pick it up, and connect it to my headset. I hear the disk inside, which is presumably the last game she installed, whirr into life, and an installation bar appears on my headset's display.

Surprisingly, the bar fills up in a matter of seconds, the disk spinning to a stop as the installation completes. Lying back on the floor, I slip my head into the headset, and connect the strap.